Jacques Hnizdovsky

Jacques Hnizdovsky (1915-1985) was born in Ukraine, educated in Europe, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1949.  He is known for his woodcuts, linocuts, and etchings that draw from the realist tradition of art.  His finely carved prints feature flora and fauna in deceptive simplicity.  Hnizdovsky is considered to have created some of the “freshest and most original print-making in American graphic arts of the past thirty years” by Peter A. Wick of Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Hnizdovsky reflected in a posthumously published monograph of his work that “a work of art incorporates both alternatives: real and abstract. Only the degree of them changes, and the accent on the is constantly shifting with time.”  The tension between real and abstract and the all-over style is felt in this early linocut print.  The pigeons and the tree branches are intermeshed and fill the entire frame with masses of black and white in graphic balance with one another. This print is executed in a slightly thicker and softer line typical of his early prints.