Honkers

Object NamePrint

Artist / Maker Jay Norwood Darling (American, 1876 - 1962)

Date1921

MediumEtching

Dimensions5 1/8" x 12" (13.0 x 30.4cm)

ClassificationsPrints and Printing Plates

Credit LineGift of the J. N. "Ding" Darling Foundation. In the permanent collection, Brunnier Art Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object numberUM82.188

Status

Not on view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label TextDating Darling’s etchings can be a challenging and frustrating experience, for he gives varying dates on different impressions. This proof bears the date ’21, which is four years earlier than any of his other etchings. Furthermore, the technical facility evidenced in this print is not found in his etchings of the 1920s. The notations on this print were made in 1956, the Darling made a clear acetate drypoint tracing of this proof to create a new plate, because as the notation says, the original copper plate was lost. (This copper plate does exist, for it was merely misplaced in the studio). He was fond of enough of the image to want to be able to print further copies of it. The date 1921 can only be an error, for it is hard to reconcile that date with anything else known about Darling as an etcher. The reason for assigning the print to about 1935 is that the conception of the birds and the landscape seem to be quite similar to other Darling prints of the mid-1930s. Darling had also made sketches of Canadian geese on the dust jacket of a book entitled "Bird Portraits in Color," by Thomas Sadler Roberts, published in 1934. The pencil sketches by Darling show him working out the same types of positions of the geese’s wings that occur in the etchings. The etching is printed in umber ink on a cream-colored paper.

Locations