The back portion of the Pleasant T. Rowland Gallery is hosting a recent acquisitions exhibit, with new pieces rotating in regularly. We’ll highlight each of the new additions here, and encourage you to make an appointment to come see these new pieces in person. Today we’re featuring Thou Shalt Not (State II) and Breeze by artist June Wayne.
June Wayne, American, 1918–2011, Thou Shalt Not (State II), 1970, color lithograph, 18 1/2 x 22 in., gift of Robert P. Conway in honor of Satya Rhodes-Conway, 2019.32.6
Wayne was an ardent feminist, artist, and author. She is perhaps best remembered as the founder of Tamarind Lithography Workshop (later Tamarind Institute), which has been recognized for its influential role in sustaining lithography as a medium for fine art since its inception in 1960. Wayne experimented with lithography’s broad range of aesthetic possibilities to articulate abstract concepts in visual terms. She based the necklace-like shape suspended above a cliff in Thou Shalt Not (State II) on a strand of DNA, the scientific discovery of which she found fascinating. Wayne was especially interested in the impact of randomly fixed genetic codes—what she described as “predetermined accidents”—on our lives as individuals.
June Wayne, American, 1918–2011, Breeze, 1978, color lithograph, 22 1/4 x 17 5/8 in., gift of Robert P. Conway in honor of Satya Rhodes-Conway, 2019.32.9
As the title of Breeze suggests, Wayne conceived this print by translating sensations of a gentle wind into an interplay of geometry, color, and texture. Cosmic and atmospheric phenomena are subjects of many of Wayne’s lithographs.