ABOUT
William C. Tucker's creative process is one of exploration and discovery. His works result from a process in which the initial image-making is tentative and probing, a technique that lends itself to imaginative fantasy. This spontaneous process has allowed the artist to develop a visual language rooted in a universal shared unconscious. His works tend toward the abstract; they are not designed as representational windows into space, yet through woven textures of color and form they nonetheless are meant to evoke symbolic or associative emotions in the viewer.
By experimenting with unusual techniques and materials, Tucker achieves a sense of spatial solidity and the illusion of depth. Color has always been central to his work as a means of expression, and his paintings and prints are often developed with this in mind: layering transparent colors to achieve resonant effects. Yet, his initial intentions are often unrealized: chance and the inevitable transmutations inherent in the creative process play a significant and often redeeming role.
Traditional painting concerns itself primarily with the interplay of light and shadow on surfaces: the skins of fruits, people, the Earth itself. Even abstraction, which breaks with that tradition, has been largely confined to its own skin: the surface of the paper or canvas. Through unusual spatial juxtapositions, Tucker strives to portray not only what can be seen on the surface, but what lies beneath: the hidden and obscure, the dimly perceived, the unconscious and the mysterious.
BACKGROUND
Studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and in an M.F.A. program at Northern Illinois University under traditional Midwestern printmaker David Driesbach during the 1960s gave Tucker a solid foundation in close observation of nature and the figure, which still informs and underlies his work. A decade of teaching design, drawing and printmaking at Indiana State University, Columbia University and other schools of higher education in the New York metropolitan area followed, during which he was also a founding member of an early cooperative in Manhattan’s then-emerging SOHO district, where he held four solo shows in the 1970s. In later years living and working in New York City, Tucker has continued his studies in printmaking at the Art Students League and the Manhattan Graphics Center, and has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad, including most recently a 2022 solo show of monotypes at the Manhattan Graphics Center.
CV
SOLO SHOWS
2022 Manhattan Graphics Center, New York City, June
2018 Manhattan Graphics Center, New York City, July-August
2006 Hebrew Tabernacle Gallery, New York City, January-February
2001 Manhattan Graphics Center, New York City, May-June
1977 Westbroadway Gallery, New York City, November
1976 Westbroadway Gallery, New York City, January
1974 Westbroadway Gallery, New York City, March
1973 Westbroadway Gallery, New York City, February
1971 Columbia University, New York, N.Y., September
1971 The University of Maine, Farmington, Maine, February
1969 The Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, June
1969 Sheldon Swope Art Gallery, Terre Haute, Indiana, March
GROUP SHOWS
2021 UnEditioned, a juried online show of prints curated by Katie Michel, Founder and Director, Planthouse Gallery, New York City, June 1-July 31
2021 Annual MGC Members Exhibition, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York City (annually from 2001-2021)
2020 MGC Comes Together: Online Benefit Exhibition and Sale, Manhattan Graphics Center, July
2019 The Climate Crisis: Endangered Earth, curated by William C. Tucker, Manhattan Graphics Center, October
2018 1st Print Biennale India, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India, April-May
2013 Unbounded: 67 Prints by 53 Artists, Hollar Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic, Sept. 18 - Oct. 13
2011 The Manhattan Graphics Center 9/11 Memorial Portfolio, etchings, engravings, lithographs and other prints by artists living and working near ground zero, The Siren's Song Gallery, Greenport, New York, Oct. - Nov.
2011 1st National Exhibition of Intaglio Prints, The National Arts Club, sponsored by the New York Society of Etchers, New York City, June
2006 The Humor Show, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 2nd - September 10th
2006 Creatures of the Deep and Shallows, Siren’s Song Gallery, Greenport, New York, Spring
2005 Manhattan Graphics Center Printmakers, The New York Law School, New York City, March 7th - April 23rd
2004 Multiple Encounters: An Exhibition of Indo-US Prints, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, India, November (then traveled to: American Center, New Delhi; Government College of Art and; Department of Fine Art, Chandigarh; and Rajasthan Lalit Kala Akademy and; Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur,India)
2004 Wish You Were Here, Postcard Exhibition, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York City, May-June
2004 New York Scenes and Dreams, New York Public Library, New York City, March
2003 Realism 2003 II, The Stage Gallery, Massapequa, New York, November 14-December 14
2003 New York Scenes and Dreams, New York Public Library, New York City, April
2003 Contemporary Printmaking, Chung-Chen Art Gallery, St. John’s University, Queens, New York, November 4 - January 3
2002 31 Graphic Artists from New York, Majsternia Gallery, Kiev, Ukraine, November 10-30; Erlin Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, October 16-30
2002 Hoyt MidAtlantic Art Exhibition, Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, Pennsylvania, October 1- November 15
2002 9.11, Commemorative Works by Members of the Manhattan Graphics Center, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York City, September
2002 New York City Not-for-Profit Workshop Exhibition, sponsored by The New York Society of Etchers, Art Students League of New York Gallery, New York City, July 8-26
2002 31 Artystow Grafikow z Nowego Jorku, Galeria Biura Wystaw Artystycznych, Sandomierz, Poland, July
2001 Prints from the Poole Printmakers and the Manhattan Graphics Center, Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth, England, Fall
2001 29 Artystow Grafikow z Nowego Jorku, Galeria Slad , Elckiego Centrum Kultury, Warsaw, Poland, July
2001 29 graveurs New Yorkais à Paris, Delta Gallery, Paris, France; June 8-24
2001 Hudson Cliffs Artists and Craftsmen, Hudson View Gardens, New York City; November, 1998; November, 2000; November 2001.
1976 BVAU-Westbroaday Exchange Exhibition, Boston Visual Arts Union Gallery, Boston, MA; June
1974 Charlottenborg Kunstudstillingen (Gevind), Royal Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark; August
1974 Recent Works by Westbroadway Artists, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia; June-July
1973 New York Avant-Garde 74, Saidye Bronfman Center, Montreal, Quebec; November-January
1973 New York Artists--Soho, Rundetarn, Copenhagen, Denmark; August
1972 Five New York Artists in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University (in cooperation with the Baltimore Museum of Art), Baltimore, MD; May
1969 Indiana Artists Exhibition, Herron Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana, Spring
REVIEWS
2006 Manhattan Times, January 19
1978 Art News, February Issue
1977 Arts Magazine, December Issue
1973 Art News, April Issue
1973 Arts Magazine, April Issue
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The New York Historical Society, New York, New York
The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The New York Public Library, New York, New York
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
The Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Columbia University, New York, New York
The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
Kutztown State College, Kutztown, Pennsylvania
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois
ART STUDIES
2000-present Manhattan Graphics Center, (Monotype, Copper Engraving, Lithography, Intaglio Printmaking)
1998-99 Art Students League of New York, (Drawing, Intaglio Printmaking)
1969-75 Columbia University, Ed.D. in Studio Art
1965-67 Northern Illinois University, M.F.A. in Painting; principal advisor printmaker David Driesbach
1961-65 Harvard College, B.A., studied with visiting artist Murray Reich, Boston University
1963 The Art Institute of Chicago, (Painting, Figure Drawing)
ART TEACHING
2007 Guest Lecturer: University of Kentucky Art Department, Lexington, Kentucky, March
1975 Lecturer in Painting and Drawing: Queen Elizabeth II World Cruise, Cunard, January-March
1970-1975 Art Instructor: Columbia University, Molloy College, Fashion Institute of Technology, Jersey City State College, New York Metropolitan Area
1967-1969 Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, Art Instructor