Bear Claws & Bamboo from The Joy of Ornament
1980
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
etching and aquatint from a portfolio of 17 etchings and aquatints and three drypoints on wove Arches paper
Dimensions
plate: 22.5 x 10.2 cm (8 7/8 x 4 in.) sheet: 29.2 x 15.2 cm (11 1/2 x 6 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Kathan Brown
Accession Number
1997.8.124.4
Art Historical Context
**Bear Claws & Bamboo fromThe Joy of Ornament Robert Kushner’s *Bear Claws & Bamboo* (1980) is a captivating print from the portfolio *The Joy of Ornament a suite of 17 etchings aquatints alongside three drypoints on fine wove Arches paper. Measuring a modest plate size of 22.5 x 10.2 cm, this work exemplifies Kushner’s embrace of exuberant decoration during the late 20th. As part of the Pattern and Decoration movement, Kushner challenged the austerity of modernism by reveling in bold patterns, vibrant motifs, and cross-cultural references—here blending rugged bear claws with elegant bamboo ...
About the Artist
Robert Kushner
Robert Kushner, born in 1949 in Pasadena, California, grew up in an artistic household profoundly shaped by his mother, Dorothy Browdy Kushner, a California Modernist painter whose studio filled with abstractions, printmaking, taxidermy, and succulents sparked his early creativity. He studied at the University of California, San Diego, where his senior exhibition in 1971 featured the performance *...