OHA 1981

Elie Wiesel

Art: 1981
Media: Etching & aquatint in the manner of a mezzotint
Size, plate image: 11 5/8 inches H x 9 W
Etching and aquatint in the manner of a mezzotint, 1981

Three extant proofs, collection of the artist.
The first state was a line etching.
In pencil, at bottom left: TRIAL PROOF STATE I, 1/1
In the center, in pencil: PORTRAIT OF ELIE WIESEL
At right, in pencil: SEGAN 1981

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One proof of the final state has the following on the bottom, in pencil,
left to right:
State VII, 1/1 PORTRAIT OF ELIE WIESEL   SEGAN 1981

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The artist is looking for the 3rd extant proof, Dec. 2018 note.

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Collections

• Museum of Modern Art, Haifa, Israel

• Tuscon Jewish Museum, Arizona

Wiesel  and Simon Wiesenthal, who preceded him in death, were the world's best known post-Holocaust survivors and authors. Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize (1986); and authored numerous books. The best known is La Nuit (1958); in English: Night. Wiesenthal was best known as a Nazi hunter and author of a number of books.

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Wiesel was a founding director of the US Holocaust Memorial Commission that developed and built the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

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My original etching years notebook lists a date of 1980, so I would have done this that fall, at Seattle’s (City artworks) Pratt printmaking center in Seward Park, Seattle. (Pratt’s print center later moved to the Central District; the Seward Park bldg. is now an Audubon Society center).

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Aside from one printed proof of the first-state, a line etching; 9 proofs were printed of the final state (aquatinted, some with more, others with less, burnishing-lightened tonal areas).

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I have 3 extant proofs:
The first is a line etching (linear only) and my records state that was the only proof printed at that stage, or stage. The other 2 proofs* were after tonal areas were etched, called aquatint(ing); and I had scraped and lightened, using 2 different metal etching tools: a scraper, and a burnisher, to highlight areas in a lighter value-tone.That lightening was meant to give the prints a look of a mezzotint, which is a different
type of etching process.
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*A proof is a printmaking term used in regard to hand-printed, original prints. There is no original other than the prints themselves (called proofs) in reference to etchings and forms of etchings (e.g. aquatints, mezzotints); engravings (wood grain or metal plate); silkscreen prints (aka serigraphs); linocuts (aka linoleum block prints) and woodcut (cut on a plank) prints.

As original works of art, this differentiates them from mass produced, non-original copies (also called prints, if erroneously), e.g. offset lithographs (which are now probably an archaic mass production method) and giclée. Giclées are frequently signed and numbered (in an edition, e.g. 1/200, 2/200) but they are mass printed copies and not original artworks.