1206 - Erika Seifert, "Es wäre schön, lieben zu dürfen", mother and child, dated 2007

Erika Seifert, "Es wäre schön, lieben zu dürfen", mother and child, dated 2007 Colour woodcut/paper, signed "Seifert" in pencil lower right and dated 2007, titled lower left, mother and child face to face against a black ground, the mother lovingly holding her child in her arms, in black and shades of grey, good condition, image 69.5x42 cm (HxW), behind glass, framed, frame slightly chipped, overall 90.5x65.5 cm (HxW) The woodcut is the oldest printing technique of European graphic art: between 1400 and 1550 the first artistic sheets were made in Alpine and Bavarian monasteries, and to this day the block of plankwood, cut along the grain, is carved away so that only the remaining ridges transfer ink to the paper in relief. For a colour woodcut the artist cuts a separate block for each colour and prints them one over the other. The earliest colour woodcuts were made in 1486; in the 20th century Expressionists such as Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner valued the woodcut for its austere and powerful expression. The contemporary figure composition with mother and child is a signed and dated colour woodcut, a sheet of original printmaking.