White Scaffolding

1946

White Scaffolding, 1946. Alice Trumbull Mason (American, 1904–1971). Engraving and soft ground etching on paper; image: 34.3 x 25.1 cm (13 1/2 x 9 7/8 in.); sheet: 46 x 33 cm (18 1/8 x 13 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Charlotte Ekker and Charlotte Van der Veer Memorial Fund 2019.230 © The Estate of Alice Trumbull Mason / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Alice Trumbull Mason worked in the New York print workshop Atelier 17 in 1945, and there explored the relationship of biomorphic shapes across texture, colors, and dimensional planes, contending that the artist’s chosen medium—not the content—contains an abstract work’s most expressive potential. White Scaffolding consists of white lines that form a structured framework over softer patterns, shapes, and expressive lines in nuanced gray tones. Mason achieved the scrim-like effect of the background by pressing a ruched tulle fabric into the soft etching ground. This print was once in the collection of artist Stanley William Hayter, founder of the print workshop Atelier 17 where Alice Trumbull Mason made the print.