Mount Rainier, Head in the Clouds is a color woodcut created in 2000 by American artist Micah Schwaberow. It is pencil signed “Micah” in the lower right and is also pencil dated and titled. This impression is numbered 42/110 and was printed by the artist on ivory Arches wove paper. The image measures 5-1/4 x 14-7/8 inches.
Mount Rainier, located in the state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest, is an active volcano that ascends to 14,410 feet above sea level and is the most glaciated peak in the contiguous U.S.A. Mount Rainier National Park is one of the oldest national parks and one of the most visited. The mountain has three major peaks: Liberty Cap, Point Success, and Columbia Crest (the latter is the summit, located on the rim of the caldera). Rainier is noted for dense stands of coniferous trees on its lower slopes, scenic subalpine and alpine meadows, waterfalls, lakes, and an abundance of wildlife. Captain George Vancourver of the British Royal Navy observed the mountain while surveying the Pacific coast in 1792 and decided to name the mountain after his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. Weather patterns at Mount Rainier are strongly influenced by the Pacific Ocean, elevation, and latitude. Clouds often cling to the peak as illustrated in Mount Rainier, Head in the Clouds.
Micah Schwaberow, printmaker, painter and sculptor, was born in Eugene, Oregon in 1948. He studied painting with Maurice Lapp and printmaking with Elizabeth Quandt at the Santa Rosa Junior College in California. In 1981, he spent a month in Miasa, Japan studying traditional woodblock printing and, in 1982, he spent most of the year in Nagai, Japan studying with the Japanese master, Toshi Yoshida, and his master carvers and printers. In September of that year, he was an assistant to Yoshida during a three-week woodblock course for foreigners.
Schwaberow has given demonstrations at the University of California Berkeley and at Mills College in Oakland. He produced a number of boxed suites of color woodcuts, including Tuolumne, Book I, which won first prize in a national competition to commemorate Yosemite National Park. In addition to his prints, Schwaberow has included a sculptural element to his list of aesthetic endeavors, creating gourd vessels echoing the figures of birds and landscapes.
Micah Schwaberow’s work was featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is represented by galleries across the United States. His work is in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and the Wichita Art Museum. In 2009, his color woodcut, Morning Mist, Heath Township, was The Print Club of Cleveland Publication No. 87.
Micah Schwaberow died on 12 July 2022 in Santa Rosa,
California.
