While the origins of nature printing can be traced to prehistoric cave paintings, and it was first used in this country by none other than Benjamin Franklin, there has been a resurgence of interest in this medium in the past fifty years. Nature printing involves the use of inks, pigments or chemicals to transfer images from natural objects onto paper, cloth or other material. These prints are the subject of the Wildling Art Museum’s new exhibition, “In Touch with Nature: The Art of Nature Printing in America” opened to the public on January 19.

The exhibition of approximately 30 prints by two dozen artists has been curated for the Wildling by Dr. F. G. Hochberg, “One of the leading nature printers in the United States and our nation’s foremost authority on the history and techniques of nature printing,” according to Penny Knowles, the Wildling Art Museum’s director. Active in printing since 1970, Dr. Hochberg has studied and worked with

printmakers in the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In 1976 he co-founded the Nature Printing Society, an international organization devoted to this medium. He has organized comprehensive nature printing exhibitions for the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and taught and lectured extensively throughout the United States and Australia. Dr. Hochberg is curator and head of the department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Nature History.

Visitors had the opportunity to try their own hand at nature printing throughout the run of the exhibition, which continued through March 13. Dr. Hochberg taught several workshops under the auspices of Santa Barbara City College and Allan Hancock College, and conducted a two-day workshop at Dunn School the weekend of February 26-27. As Dr, Hochberg says in the informative brochure that accompanies the exhibition, “Few art forms so simply or precisely record the subtle distinctions and graceful beauty of nature. And certainly no other method is so ingenious as to let you feel the shapes and textures of nature at the same time as you express their designs. The graceful contours and delicate surface textures of plants and animals, rocks and other found objects serve as templates for prints that capture the striking beauty of nature.”

“In Touch with Nature” included prints made from many subjects, including fish, plants, rocks, shells and insects. There were prints made by both the direct and indirect method, and some decorative objects in cloth and ceramic using these same techniques. The earliest print was Sucker by Janet Roemhild Canning, dating from the 1950’s. There are also prints from the 1970’s by Robert Cale, a master of the art form from Stonington, Connecticut, and by Robert Little. Central Coast artists who had prints in the exhibition include Shane and Genny Anderson and Katherine Bower of Santa Barbara, Ky Easton of Goleta, Tom McCormick of Ojai, and Georgia Lee of Los Osos.