Phoenix Ascending

About the Work

James Wells, the master printmaker who founded Howard University's print department, had never made an offset lithograph before their experience at Brandywine. He created Phoenix Ascending, 1985, at the age of 83, a five-color offset lithograph in an edition of 100. It's his only print produced at Brandywine. Phoenix Ascending has a dense, richly colored surface achieved through a five-color layering process. The work's flatness and expressionist energy, achieved through the use of bold, vigorous lines, is typical of Wells' signature. Wells' contributions to the continuity of African American culture and the birth of American printmaking as a primary art form are represented by the theme of the mystical bird native to Egypt. The dominant color, yellow, is used to represent chaos on the left and rebirth on the right of the Phoenix. Two human figures run away from the flames to the calm of the right side, directly beneath the Phoenix's talons. The artist leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether or not the human figures reach safety.
_{—Adapted from Brandywine Workshop and Archives records and "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)}