“The Prints of John L. Winters” display in the Adair
Skipwith Gallery is a retrospective of the artist’s graphic
works from 1967 to 1997. The pieces are from his exhibit
displayed last fall at the Latvian National Museum of Art
in Riga, Latvia.
A gallery reception is scheduled 1:30-3 p.m. Sunday. The
exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. The
museum is open 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
and 1-4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Although a regular visitor to Latvia, his native country,
Winter had not had the opportunity to exhibit his work
there until last year. He received the invitation because
of his “high level of printmaking technical mastery,” said
Marita Berzina, curator of works on paper at the Latvian
Museum.
” Winters hasn’t specialized in one single technique; he
has chosen to use not only the traditional classical
methods, but also has gone with the times and mastered new
techniques such as photo etching,” Berzina said.
Winters said that wanting to be able to teach students
various printmaking methods was his inspiration for
learning different techniques. He has done printmaking in
silkscreen, etching, woodcut and lithography.
“The various techniques give life to the art in different
ways,” he said.
Albert Sperath, museum director agreed, saying, “Winters’
images touch a nerve that one has a hard time identifying.
Mysterious, humorous and perplexing are words that come to
mind when I view his art.”
Born in 1935 in the Bauska district of Latvia, Winter fled
to Germany with his family to escape the Soviets in 1944.
They immigrated to the United States in 1950.
Winters received his BFA in 1963 from the Rhode Island
School of Design and his MFA in painting from Tulane
University in New Orleans in 1965. He furthered his studies
at the Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in
1969; the Art Students League of New York in 1978 and
Fairview College, Peace River, Alberta, Canada, in 1993.
Winters is an honorary professor of the Latvian Academy of
Art. With the re-establishment of Latvia’s independence in
1991, he founded an annual scholarship for the best
creative achievement in the graphic arts by students from
the academy’s graphics department.
Winters and his wife, Maggie, reside in Oxford.