Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Felrath Hines began a series of monoprints in the early 1980s, just prior to his retirement as the chief conservator at the Hirschhorn Museum. Although he had produced a few etchings early in his career, this was the first experiment with the monotype technique. Unlike other print media, the monotype creates a one-of-a-kind image. The artist applies pigments directly onto a smooth plate: the heated metal surface enables the oily ink to be easily manipulated. The plate is then pressed into a sheet of paper. Although the image is not reproducable, painters liked the medium's flexibility, speed, and brush-like effects.

Hines explored more textural and gestural qualities in his monotypes than are seen in his later paintings. Although the title of this work suggests that the yellow bands may represent the horizontal elements of a landscape, the imagery is primarily about color, shape, and variation. Its subtle monotone pallette was also seen in Hine's paintings of the early 1970s perhaps reflecting the influence of the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko.