To paraphrase my old man, Barry Moser remains one of the most important book illustrators working in America today. I had the tremendous honor of taking a class with Barry when I was an undergraduate at Smith College, and in the intervening years had the privilege of interviewing him for various projects including his work on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
Barry continues to innovate with wood engraving, a technique he says can be learned in an hour but requires a lifetime to master. Whether writing or engraving, he applies the same technique of finding the form to tell the story.
If there's any single takeaway from this conversation, it's that great art, whether in type or inked from blocks, requires dedication and patience. In other words, "there are no shortcuts," as Moser warns in the introduction to his treatise on woodcuts. "Mastery comes only with time, work, and repetition....Once your muscles know how to do their work, once they know how to cut thin white lines into boxwood, your mind will be free to invent."
A note: my introduction only notes the British Museum as a repository of Barry's work. Add The National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Metropolitan Museum, The Library of Congress, and MANY others.
Links:
Barry Moser
https://bmoser.ag-sites.net/index.htm
We Were Brothers
https://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Brothers-Barry-Moser/dp/1616204133
Arion Press
Barry Moser Illustrates Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass https://literaryfeaturessyndicate.com/2020/09/09/barry-moser-illustrates-narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass/
Chapters
00:00 Barry Moser's Memoir: 'We Were Brothers'
06:21 Challenging Labels: The Art of Illustration
16:08 Crafting the Perfect Illustration
38:22 Embracing Mortality: Barry Moser's Perspective
