mezzotint
1984
14 1/4 x 11 3/4
edition: 30
signed in pencil
$600
Holly Downing, painter, printmaker and teacher, was born in San Francisco in 1948. She studied art at the University of California, Santa Cruz earning her B.A. in 1972. Her studies continued at the Royal College of Art, London and at Goddard College where she was in the graduate program in Europe. Between the years 1974 and 1980, Downing resided in England where she researched the mezzotint technique earning her M.F.A. from Goddard College in 1980. Downing taught art for twenty-three years at the Santa Rosa Junior College and prior to that she taught briefly at the University of California at Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University.
Downing's paintings and mezzotints have been exhibited internationally. She is a recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the Greenshields Foundation, Canada; the Arts Council of Great Britain; the Graham Foundation, Chicago; and the San Francisco Phelan Foundation. Downing is an elected member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, London.
Her work is in found in many museum collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum; Ashmoleon Museum, Oxford; Scottish National Art Gallery, Edinburgh; Bibliotheque nationale de France; Chi-ba Art Museum and Nakasatsunai Art Museum, Japan; Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco; Stanford University Art Museum; as well as the Boise, Portland, and Hawaii Art Museums. Downing's mezzotints are included in a number of publications, including The Mezzotint, History and Technique by Carol Wax, 1990; Holly Downing, 25 Years of Mezzotints, catalogue raisonne, 2001; and Printmakers' Secretsedited by Tony Dyson, 2009.
