Mountain Stream

In his linocut Mountain Stream, William Zorach depicts a group of nude bathers cavorting in a rocky mountain stream beneath stylized evergreen trees. His imagined wilderness seems to pulsate with nature's energetic life force. Around the time he made the print, Zorach described his idyll of nature: "The country was a new world to me—every flower and every weed was a revelation of color and design….There were no problems…no gloomy forebodings…only a joyous awareness of the world about us. Flowers bloomed, wild life carried on, clouds floated….Nude figures lay around pools, played with children, made love, dreamed" (Burke, 2002, p. 258). In the print, the nude women seen luxuriating, bathing, or merely looking on are simplified in their bold contours of stark white shapes against the black background, while trees, clouds, and the flowing waterfall in the upper right appear as decorative patterns suggestive of a folk sensibility.

The bold, flat patterning of this rare print recalls the modernist works Zorach encountered while in Paris in 1910–11, particularly the early woodcuts of Russian modernist pioneer Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) and the woodcut prints made by French artist André Derain (1880–1954) in 1909–1911 in the powerful color of the movement known as fauvism. This impression of Mountain Stream is one of only four known impressions. Zorach made a total of thirty-one individual prints in the course of his career, primarily linocuts inspired by his summers in the New York and New England countryside, made between 1915 and 1921.

L'Amérique et les Modernes, 1900–1950 (American Moderns, 1900–1950), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 25–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Loyola University Museum of Art, May 17–August 10, 2008. [exh. cat.]

Atelier 17: Modern Printmaking in the Americas (Atelier 17: Gravura moderna nas Américas, Museu De Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP) and Terra Foundation for American Art (organizer). Venue: Museu De Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP), March 23–June 2, 2019. [exh. cat.]

Beall, Karen F. and David W. Kiehl. Graphic Excursions: American Prints in Black and White, 1900–1950; Selections from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams. Boston, Massachusetts: David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., in association with The American Federation of Arts, 1991. Cat. no. 5.

Burke, Efram L., "The Prints of William Zorach." Print Quarterly 19:4 (2002): 353–73. Text pp. 358, 372; ill. p. 357.

Burke, Efram L., "The Prints of William Zorach." Print Quarterly 19:4 (2002): 353–73. Text p. 372. [specific reference to Terra print]

Brownlee, Peter John. Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008. Text p. 37 (checklist).

Rossetti de Toledo, Carolina, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, and Peter John Brownlee. Atelier 17 e a gravura moderna nas Americas / Atelier 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas. (exh. cat., Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo). São Paulo, Brazil: 2019. Text pp. 278-279; ill. p. 277 (color).