Interview with Lou Stovall for documentary in which Stovall demonstrates and speaks about his silk screen printing process and use of color in detail. During the interview, Stovall discusses his ability and passion for drawing, hiding the human figure in landscape compositions, working with stencils and proofing strips, details of the reductive printing process, integration of color in his work, silk screen printing as a technical medium, art intelligence, aesthetics in his work and other artists, where he gets his inspiration, and Sam Gilliam's work and abstract art.
Interview for short documentary titled Lou Stovall. Audio only. Part of Through Their Eyes: The Art of Lou and Di Stovall Audiovisual Records. AV003305: audio skips and minimal distortions. Dated 19830627.
Biographical / Historical:
Lou Stovall Interview - Silk Screen Process is related to an exhibition featuring the works of Washington, D.C. artists, Lou and Di Stovall, organized by the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum and held there from September 18, 1983 - March 4, 1984. The exhibition, Through Their Eyes: The Art of Lou and Di Stovall, showcased 84 works - silkscreen prints, drawings, and arcylic paintings - illustrating the artists' progression form posterists to master printmaker and miniaturist, respectively. The art was complemented by audiovisual presentations on the technique of silkscreen printing and a biographical essay on the artists.;Lou Stovall was born Luther McKinley Stovall in Athens, Georgia in 1937. When Stovall was four years old, his family moved north to Springfield, Massachusetts to find work. At age of fifteen, he was an apprentice to Al LaPierre in his silkscreen sign shop at the Growers Outlet Super Market. In 1956, Stovall received a grant and scholarship to attend Rhode Island School of Design. After the first semester, his father became ill so Stovall returned home to support his family for about five or six years. When he returned to school, Stovall attended Howard University, where he received a B.F.A. in 1965. James Lesesne Wells introduced to Stovall to silkscreen as a fine art rather than a commercial medium. Stovall also learned about collaboration in printmaking (artist and printer combining ideas and skills to create a work of art) from Wells. In 1968, Stovall received a grant to buy printmaking equipment. However, he made most of the tools and tables himself creating a full scale printmaking, wood making, and metal workshop in Washington, D.C. Under his direction, Workshop Inc. has grown from a small but active studio primarily concerned with community posters into a professional printmaking outfit. Stovall creates his own original silkscreen prints and is the printmaker of choice for other master artists including Elizabeth Catlett, David C. Driskell, and Sam Gilliam. For each work of art, he finds new and unique ways to replicate as closely as possible a painting supplied by the artist. He has the ability to make the medium do just about anything he and the artist(s) want it to do. Stovall's innovative techniques and distinctive style is credited by artists and critics with helping to transform the concept of silkscreen printmaking from a commercial craft to a true art form. In 1971, Stovall married Di Bagley, a painter who specializes in acrylic on paper and incorporates miniature images into many of her works.
Local Numbers:
ACMA AV003305-2
ACMA AV003281
General:
Title transcribed from physical asset.
Series Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Some items are not accessible due to obsolete format and playback machinery restrictions. Please contact the archivist at acmarchives@si.edu.
Material collected or kept by the Del Deo's relating to Provincetown art and artists, including Ross Moffet, Karl Knaths, James Wingate Parr, J. Madaline Winslow, Front Street Gallery, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Center (FAWC).
Material pertaining to painter Ross Moffett includes photographs of his family and its farm in Iowa; photographs of Moffett's paintings and drawings; photographs of Moffett's work taken by George Yater; material pertaining to Moffett's lecture "Three Dimensional Organization in Painting"; translations from a publication by Gino Severini; and drawings of Moffett by Shelby Shackelford.
Knaths material consists of two sketchbooks, one with occassional notes (1929) and one, ca. 1952; the sketches are figure and landscape compositions in Knath's characteristic cubist style. Parr material consists of a small album containing clippings, photographs of work, telegrams, and letters (undated and 1946); Winslow material is a letter to Caroline H. Geiger (1938).
Also found are records of the cooperative Front Street Gallery, in which Sal Del Deo was a member for its one-season existence, including information on the "Freedom Riders Exhibition" to benefit the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); 7 reel-to-reel tape recordings made by Del Deo at the first three sessions of the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC), 1968-1970, including lectures or seminars by Jack Tworkov, Henry Hensche, Karl Knaths, Philip Malicoat, Boris Margo, and Ross Moffett.
Biographical / Historical:
Collectors; Provincetown, Mass. Josephine is the author of Figures in a Landscape : the Life and Times of the American Painter, RossMoffett, 1888-1971. Sal (b. 1928) is a painter and former vice-president of the Fine Arts Work Center.
Provenance:
Donated 1996, 1998 and 2000 by Jo & Sal Del Deo. They received the Moffett material Moffett's widow and used by Del Deo in preparation for her biography on Moffett. The Parr album was received from Robert Cummings, an old friend of Parr's, who had received it from Parr's parents. The Knaths sketchbooks were given by his widow, Helen, to the Del Deos. The Winslow letter was given to Josephine Del Deo by Janice Crouch who had a connection with Geiger or her family, either as a relation or a friend.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
Reel-to-reel recordings of FAWC lectures and discussions: Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Salvatore Del Deo. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Artists -- Massachusetts -- Provincetown Search this
