color mezzotint
2004
18 x 18
edition: 75
signed in pencil
Thomas Oliver invented the first double-sided lateral top stroke machine. This was No. 9 introduced in 1916. With light focused on the machine it suggested the logo of the Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes series - giving off an anima-like aura. The print was issued in an edition of 75.
Carol Wax originally trained to be a classical musician at the Manhattan School of Music but fell in love with printmaking. Soon after she began engraving mezzotints she was asked by the renowned print dealer Sylvan Cole to exhibit at Associated American Artists Gallery, launching her career as a professional artist/printmaker. With the publication of her book, The Mezzotint: History and Technique, published by Abrams, 1990 and 1996, Carol added author and teacher to her credits. In the ensuing years she has expanded her repertoire of mediums beyond printmaking into other works on paper and painting. In compositions reflecting an appreciation for antiquated machinery and vintage textiles, Wax creates imagery that, in her own words, “… speaks to an inner life perceived in inanimate objects.” She uses stylization and imagination to reinvent subjects, transforming an ordinary typewriter into a monumental icon, unplugged fans into whirring creatures, and fabric into rippling water or animalistic forms. Her sewing machines, emblazoned with elegant hieroglyphs, reflect a bygone design sensibility while her accordions vibrate with the rhythms of a Cajun dance hall on a Louisiana bayou. Recognition of Wax’s art includes an Individual Support Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Inc., two Artist Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Concordia Career Advancement Award from NYFA, The Louise Nevelson Award for Excellence in Printmaking from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and residences at The MacDowell Colony and Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation’s Space Program. A selection of the many collections that own her prints are The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York and Boston Public Libraries, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Library of Congress, and The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
