Figure I is a color viscosity intaglio created in 1966 by American artist Kathryn Metz. It is pencil signed, titled, dated, and editioned trial proof. Figure I was printed by the artist on a sheet of ivory C.M. Fabriano watermarked wove paper and the platemark measures 9-11/16 x 11-3/4 inches.
Figure I is a swirling, multi-hued abstraction that reads as much as the curvature of a torso as it does a curving frame of a stained-glass window. The vivid yet muted colors and dimensionality are a result of Metz’s use of the simultaneous color printing techniques developed at Atelier 17. This technique allowed for the plate to be rolled in inks of various colors and viscosities based upon the premise that inks of different viscosities will not mix. This process allows for the layering of colors of different viscosities on the plate.
Kathryn (Kay) Metz, painter, printmaker and educator, was born in Dayton, Ohio on 3 September 1932. She received her BFA from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and her MA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Between 1966 and 1967, she studied at Atelier 17 in Paris under the auspices of the College Art Study Abroad at the American Center for Students and Artists. She continued independent studies with Philip Guston and Robert Blackburn in New York.
Metz’s teaching experience began at Phoenix College in Arizona in 1964. She was part-time faculty at the New York University School of Education, New York City between 1967 and 1969, moving then to the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. After briefly teaching at the University of California Extension in Los Angeles, Metz was hired in 1971 to teach at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she established the Printmaking Department. Highly influential as a teacher, she trained and inspired generations of artists until her retirement in 1992. She helped found the Watsonville Wetlands Watch and was especially concerned with protecting and restoring Elkhorn Slough.
Metz exhibited extensively and was awarded residence grants at the Huntington Hartford Foundation, Pacific Palisades in 1965, and a residence fellowship at MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire in 1966-1967. Her works are held in the collections of the Musée d’art Contemporain de Chamalières, France; the Janet Turner Print Museum, University of California, Chico; the Fresno Art Museum, California; the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, Utah; the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, University of California, Los Angeles; the Monterey Museum of Art, California; the New York Public Library, New York; Special Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz; the Phoenix Art Museum; and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Kay Metz died in Santa Cruz, California on 27 September 2018.
