Second Annual Spotlight Talk by Johanna Drucker, Distinguished Professor and Breslauer Professor Emerita, Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Paul Landacre was a wood engraver and artist whose first published work, California Hills (1931), established his reputation within the Fine Press community of Los Angeles. Highly skilled as an engraver, he produced a considerable corpus of acclaimed work, and he also kept scrupulous records of all aspects of his activity—account books, correspondence, sketches, and personal memorabilia. These materials provide an in-depth look at his professional life, and his connections to a singular network of artists and intellectuals in the region. But the images, particularly in California Hills, raise their own issues in relation to the longer traditions of representations of the “pristine” and “uninhabited” landscape, thus participating in an erasure of indigenous peoples that had been part of landscape painting. The additional collections of the Clark Library include many useful materials for establishing the background for this erasure in documents from the 19th century onward in which the struggles for recognition, sovereignty, and identity are recorded. This talk presents an approach to reading Landacre’s archive in relation to this rich historical material.
The Clark Library is pleased to display a selection of relevant materials from the collection at the lecture.
The lecture is free to attend with advance registration, and will be held in-person at the Clark Library and livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. No registration is required to watch the livestream. Seating is limited at the Clark; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.
Registration will close on Monday, October 21.