Sixty Years of Prints & Wood Engravings

Wood engraving and letterpress printing have proven to be more than passing hobbies for Spokane, Washington artist and craftsman Gale Mueller. Sixty Years of Prints & Wood Engravings collects the evidence to show what a substantial body of work can result from an activity one does for love rather than money. From early prints for Christmas cards in 1953 through the accomplished “Armadillo” wood engraving in 2013, Mueller’s touch conveys delight and insight in the scores of images he has rendered over a lifetime of work—work that continues on for this publication: a new cut, of “The Engraver” himself, was designed, engraved, and printed by the artist especially for this collection. Sixty Years of Prints & Wood Engravings reproduces over 125 prints, including 24 color reproductions of multicolor relief prints, with a Foreword by woodcut collector and J. J. Lankes scholar Welford D. Taylor; Afterword by letterpress printer Mike O’Conner.

“There is a distinctly personal dimension . . . at times humorous, occasionally whimsical but never inappropriate or gratuitous. It is his manner to observe the telling qualities of a subject, respect its uniqueness as he expresses it and then, often but not always, embellish it with a touch of his own unique essence . . . His work indicates that a human hand, guided by a human heart, has carved the design.” —from the Foreword, by Welford D. Taylor