“Prints From Wood: The Art of the Woodcut,” is the title of the West Valley Art Museum’s next exhibition at the Peoria City Hall Gallery.
The museum has more than 200 fine art prints in various mediums, of which woodcuts are nearly a third.
The exhibit will contain many woodcuts from Japan, including the work of Ando Hiroshige, one of the best-known Japanese printmakers. Also on exhibit is the work of Clifton Karhu, a westerner working in Japan, Helen Wet Heller, an American printmaker, and several others.
Woodcuts are a technique of printing designs from planks of wood. It is one of the oldest methods of making prints from a relief surface, having been used in China to decorate textiles since the fifth century.
The exhibit will contain educational materials such as the tools and blocks used to make woodcuts and detailed descriptions of the process.
The exhibit opens Monday and will run through Sept. 15. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and noon to 6 p.m. Thursdays and by appointment.
The gallery is at 8401 W. Monroe St., Peoria, on the first floor in the building’s east wing. For information, call 623-773-7053 or visit www.peoriaaz.gov/arts.
