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Wharton Esherick
The Emperor Jones, 1930
Poster designed and printed by Wharton Esherick for the Hedgerow Theatre Production of Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones, 1930.
This is the only known surviving copy. The Wharton Esherick Museum retains the original wood block from which it was printed.
Playing Brutus Jones in The Emperor Jones was Paul Robeson’s most famous role.
In this woodcut poster, the Emperor Jones, armed with a revolver, confronts an antagonist.
Esherick’s woodcut work, produced almost entirely between 1922 and 1933, occurred in a period of great artistic transition for him, when he sought a medium in which he could evolve his own characteristic style. Formally trained in oil and watercolor painting, Esherick soon abandoned painting as he developed an identifiable style in his woodcuts. His ability to carve very detailed two-dimensional images that were alive and expressed movement made him one of the great woodcut artists of the 20th century.
Wharton Esherick (1887 – 1970) was an internationally significant figure in the landscape of art history and American modern design. As a sculptor, Esherick worked primarily in wood and extended his unique forms to furniture, furnishings, interiors, buildings, and more. A Philadelphia-area modernist sculptor deeply influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, Wharton Esherick designed and built furniture distinctive for its asymmetric, prismatic forms. His goal was to design furniture that functioned as sculpture, and sculpture that functioned as furniture.
| Dimensions | 29 × 1 × 41 in |
|---|---|
| Artist | |
| Color | Black, Brown |
| Date | 1930 |
| Material | ink, Paper |
| Style |
