Images: Between the Lines
Discover the intricate techniques of woodcut printing as employed by Stanley Kaplan, where each carve reveals a story beneath the surface.
Images: Between the Lines
When Stan was nine, a group of boys threw stones at him, screaming that he had killed Christ. They had been taught to hate Jews. He cried, then grew angry. He wanted to fight back.
Fear runs through history — real or imagined, it leads to anger, then hate, then aggression. Without love and acceptance, indifference and greed take hold, and prejudice follows.
Images: Between the Lines grew from that understanding — beginning as a memoir of his World War II experiences and his growing awareness of the Holocaust. Lines were everywhere: on the page, between armies, around prisons, keeping everyone in order. Writing home to his parents during the war, he remembered everything he couldn't bring himself to tell them. The truth lived between the lines. After seeing Goya's Disasters of War at the Met, he felt compelled to make fifteen linocut prints, and words, images, and text came together into a book.
He self-publishes to control the process — the type, the paper, the rhythm of the whole. He cuts into dark linoleum to bring out light. That movement, from darkness toward light, is his metaphor for hope.
Some of what's inside the book...
Fifty years after the experience, and inspired by Goya's Disasters of War at the Met, Stan created fifteen linocut prints — accompanied by words that emerged as a natural development.
Testimonials—Images: Between the Lines
- Roberta Waddell, Curator of Prints, The New York Public Library
"A very eloquent project - there are no false motions or emotions - words and images are pared down and sharply tuned for the greatest emotional effect."
- Jacob Landau, Artist, Roosevelt, N.J.
Professor Emeritus, Pratt Institute,
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Thank you, Stan, for keeping the faith. At a time when it is no longer fashionable to care, when it is chic to be utterly cynical, when artists devise novelties to keep ahead of the pack, you have held on to the values of human concern; the beauty of truth, the tradition of protest, the willingness to look horror in the face, the courage and the wit to create a graphic language equal to such tasks.
- William J. Dane, Keeper of Prints, The Newark Public Library
"A notable production and bears an important message for everyone - basic concepts as we head into a new century - in the widely heralded tradition of anti-war prints."