Landscapes and Lithography

Adolph Dehn (1895-1962), born in Waterville, Minnesota, created outstanding figurative prints, paintings, and drawings exemplifying well-defined form through the careful consideration of line and shape. Captivating landscapes and cityscapes comprise a significant portion of Dehn's body of work. But his portraits, which illustrate humanity with irreverence, humor, and affection, dominate Dehn's oeuvre. Dehn traveled extensively and visually documented his observations from his journeys to Europe, Mexico, India, Haiti, Venezuela, and his home state of Minnesota. Dehn began his art studies at The Minneapolis School of Art in 1915 and enrolled in the Art Students League in New York from approximately 1917-1918. In 1920 the master printer, George Miller, introduced Dehn to lithography, which became his preferred medium.

The lithographs below are just a few examples of Dehn's work. The subject of each piece is a differing landscape, one of the most prominent depictions of nature since the beginning of time. It is only nature to want to showcase the beauty of nature when confronted with such a massive amount of it, as can be seen in Dehn’s pieces. Artist bibliography courtesy of the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery.

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A landscape split in two halves by a lake on the right and rolling hills and trees on the left. The pale blue grey lake is perfectly still without waves whereas the pale green rolling hills are dotted with low shrubs and trees. The lake and hills dominate the lower 1/3 of the composition; the balance of the composition is a pale blue gray sky with thin and fluffy clouds.

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This is an ink drawing of a landscape with a farm nestled into the foothills in the distance. In the foreground three trees in a patch of grass occupy the lower fourth of the composition. In the middle ground, open fields lined with trees moves the viewers eye to the farm buildings nestled at the large foothills to the mountains. In the background, the tree-studded foothills on the right lead the viewer to the distant mountains on the left with a cloud covered sky overhead.

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The composition is a farmscape with four different homes and barns. In the foreground a hint of water can be seen in the lower left corner of the compositionin front of a pale green open space leading up to a farmstead with a red barn, another out building, and a white house surrounded be two trees. There appearsto be two figures standing in front of the white house in the foreground. The middle ground contains various shades of green and yellow rolling hills, farmfields, and three more farmsteads. Dark gray hills rise up above the farm fields in the background and a soft gray sky fills the upper third of the composition.

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The composition is a tri color print of farmland. There are short shrubs lining the foreground of the print and fields of crops leading to the middle ground. In the middle ground is a small town bathed in light at the base of the dark gray/black mountains. The sky in the background is a solid light gray/blue sky.