Pat Steir
American painter and printmaker, born 1938
Long Vertical Falls #2
1991
Soap ground and spitbite aquatint on wove paper
53 1/4 x 30 inches (135.255 x 76.2 centimeters)
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 1997.
1997.009.000

Throughout Pat Steir's career, which began in the 1960s, she has been influenced by modern art movements, such as Abstract Expressionism, Conceptual Art, and Minimalism. The history of art is also important to her, and she made her series of waterfall paintings and prints after studying Chinese paintings. Though entirely abstract, their linear, dripping quality mimics the flow of water down a surface. In Long Vertical Falls #2 the artist achieved this effect using the technique of soap ground and spit bite aquatint, an etching process that allows a broad range of tonal variation, from the bold white of the "falls" to subtle differences in the dark ink that surrounds them.