DOLE, William

watercolor, paper on paper

image: 9 1/8 x 17 1/2 in. sheet: 10 1/2 x 19 in. mat: 22 x 28 in.

William Dole was a beloved Professor of Art at UC Santa Barbara from 1949 until his death in 1983. Though Dole achieved an international reputation for his collages, he was initially trained as a painter. From 1957, while on sabbatical in Italy, Dole purchased a trove of nineteenth-century Italian ephemera that included letters, marbleized paper, and maps. These materials along with a stash of Japanese papers he received earlier, all came togetherI had all of [this] marvelous material out which I could make images. These early collages, such as Palazzo, often mimic landscapes or architecture, both of which were prime subject matter for Dole the painter. Over time, Dole moved away from producing these interpretable images and instead made more purposefully enigmatic compositions, such as Speak Memory that focused on the purely formal, visual elements.

1957

DOLE, William

United States, 1917 - 1983

1983.79