Castle
Rock, New Zealand -- Winter Night, 1996 Fine Prints
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CLAIRE VAN VLIET Born 1933 in Ottawa, Canada; resides in Vermont
Claire Van Vliet is a printmaker and book artist who has been honored with a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship and an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award. She was educated at San Diego State University in California where she received a Bachelor of Arts and at Claremont College Graduate School where she was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in 1954. In the same year she began working on the wood-engravings that she would publish as a book by her own Janus Press in the following year.
In the mid-1950s Van Vliet traveled in Europe, apprenticing herself for a time as a hand typesetter. During these travels she taught herself etching while working as a craft instructor at the United States European Headquarters in Germany. For the remainder of the '50s and early 1960s Van Vliet taught printmaking, typography and drawing at the Philadelphia Museum School (now The University of the Arts) and worked as a type compositor for John Anderson, first at The Lanston Monotype Company in Philadelphia, and then at his own Pickering Press in New Jersey. In 1965 to '66 she was hired by the Art Department of the University of Wisconsin, Madison as a Visiting Lecturer in Printmaking.
In 1966 Van Vliet moved to Vermont and created a permanent home for Janus Press. Through the years her work as published by Janus Press has been the subject of several shows, including a 25-year retrospective in 1977 at the Wiggin Gallery of the Boston Public Library and "Experimenting with the Book: The Janus Press" at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1994.
Museums have collected Van Vliet's work include The National Gallery in Washington, DC; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and Smithsonian Institution, to name but a few. In addition to her many honors, in 1993 the University of the Arts in Philadelphia named Van Vliet an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts.
Castle
Rock, New Zealand -- Winter Night, 1996
intaglio vitreograph on rag paper, Edition of 20
image size 17½" x 30", paper size 26¾" x 35" $600*
Castle
Rock, New Zealand -- Summer Night, 1997
intaglio vitreograph on Somerset Satin, Edition of 20
image size 17½" x 30", paper size 26¾" x 35" $600*
Van Vliet has traveled extensively throughout her career, bringing to her art the sights and atmosphere of the places she has been. Nature and its changing aspects early became the focus of her art. The landscapes of France, Denmark, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand as well as Vermont and New Mexico have found interpretation in her prints and drawings.
Clay
Cliffs, 1998
intaglio vitreograph and siligraph on Somerset Satin, Edition of 30
image size 17½" x 30", paper size 25" x 36" $600*
Little
Echo Canyon, 1998
siligraph on paper, Edition of 20
image size 27.5" x 22", paper size 27 ½" x 22" $600*
Little Echo Canyon is in New Mexico.
Moeraki
Boulders IA, II and III, 1998
intaglio vitreograph on paper, Edition of 30
paper size of assembled triptych: 30" x 80" $1,800*
In the catalog "Black and White: Landscape Prints by Claire Van Vliet" (Stinehour Press, Vermont, 1999) Van Vliet discusses the inspiration for Moeraki Boulders: "I was in search of rock formations that were very different from those of North America. A good examples is the concretions on the beach at Moeraki on the Pacific coast of New Zealand's South Island at the 45th Parallel. These are huge -- as large as seven feet in diameter -- round boulders that are birthed out of the marine terrace that holds them by the action of the sea."
Moon,
Kilclooney More, 1998
intaglio vitreograph on rag paper, Edition of 20
image size 24" x 30", paper size 30½" x 38" $600*
Kilclooney More in County Donegal, Ireland is the site of a number of megaliths, among them this impressive portal tomb.
CLAIRE VAN VLIET
Dolmen, Kilclooney More is a suite of seven prints published by Littleton Studios in 2000.
The suite is available for $1,800 (in clamshell portfolio, $2,000)
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More - Cover page
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 1
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 2
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 3
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 4
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 5
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 6
Dolmen,
Kilclooney More 7
Other editions by Claire Van Vliet
Burtonport, Low Tide -- County Donegal (Diptych) 1999, image size 23 x 27 inches and 23 x 29 inches, $1500*
Moeraki Boulders IV, 1994, image size: 24 x 18 inches, $600*
Muruwai Exposed Reef, New Zealand, 1997, image size: 17 1/2 x 30 inches, $600*
Muruwai Sea Tunnel, 1999, image size: 22 ½ x 18 ½ inches, $800*
Snow Squall, 1993, image size: 12 x 16 inches, $450*
Wind Cave, 14 x 24 inches, $500*
Please contact us for details.
*Prices are subject to change without notice.
To order:
Email The Littleton Collection (press "contact us" below) to let us know which print(s) you would like to purchase; we will confirm the price and that the print is still available.
Florida, North Carolina and District of Columbia residents: State tax will be added to the purchase price.
Prints are shipped flat. Shipping and handling adds $35 to the price of the print.
Payment:
Send check or money order for print(s), tax and shipping to:
The Littleton Collection, 3690 N. US 1, Fort Pierce, Florida 34946
We also accept Visa and MasterCard over the telephone.
Shipment and returns: Your print will be shipped as soon as we receive payment. Each print comes with a documentation sheet that certifies the materials used in making the print and the number of prints and proofs in the edition, along with other important information.
If you are not satisfied with your purchase return it within seven days of receipt in the packaging in which it was sent. The Littleton Collection will refund the purchase price on undamaged merchandise.
Questions: Email below or phone us in Florida at 772/595-9845 (9:00 to 5:00 EST -- long distance charge).