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Inspiration from Artists Wk 145 Featuring Artists :Michael Taylor and Gordon Mortenson
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Message
Posted
Those white poppies are simply stunning
Curiously, looking up Gordon Mortensen (note the heading to this thread has Mortenson, but Jenny, rightly calls him Mortensen) I came across Gordon Mortensen , an abstract painter. Could there be be two artists of the same name? I compared a photo of Mortensen abstract from his web site (https://www.gordonmortensenart.com/about) with a YOuTube video of Mortensen woodcut (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95GANdc2CHc) and couldn't decide. Both wore spectacles and parted their hair on the left. There was an age difference, and it was possible -jjust - that Gordon Mortensen had a dramatic late career change of direction. As the bio on the Mortensen woodcut website makes no mention of woodcuts, I am inclined to believe there are two aritists with the same name. Curious indeed. It would seem one was born in 1938 and one in 1943 but a Google search seems to identify both dates with Mortensen woodcut, and another Google hit describes Mortensen as both a reduction woodcut artist and an abstract painter. It would seem all to easy to confuse the two.
Edited
by Tony Auffret
Posted
Tony the name on the top of the post was my work , very possibly thst I spelt it wrong or the spell check changed it .
I have a bad habit of not checking once it press the post button however your observation is intriguing and highlights a problem I often have when researching for the thread , artists with the same name and google offer the work of either one quite often.
Posted
I did find some of the write-ups on his life and work very confusing. According to one, he was apparently a keen abstract painter at one point but decided he would make a better living as a designer, and chose that path, later focusing on reduction woodcuts. All of the write-ups referred to him as born in 1938. The only reference to 1943 was on an X social media post by someone with an Italian sounding name, but the woodcut print images he posted were those by Gordon Mortensen born 1938, so just a mistake giving his birth date as 1943. I wanted to focus on his work as a woodcut artist, so ignored any other work he may have done.
(Later note - The current website Tony has referred to does, though, say he relaunched his career as an abstract artist in 2016, so that may account for some of the confusion.)
Edited
by Jenny Harris
Posted
Two superb artist this week thank both you for introducing them to us. I’m making a change to my choice of artist for next week as I unfortunately can’t find enough material for the one I originally planned to introduce.
The artist for next week are : Darren Lewis and Mary Jean Ruhnke ( hope I’ve got that right Jenny ).
Posted
I think there really are 2 artists called Gordon Mortenson, and a lot, an awful lot, of confusion on the internet. It doesn’t help that Mortensen Woodcut doesn’t seem to have his own website. One gallery https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/1661/mortensen/gordon describes Mortensen Woodcut as born in North Dakota in 1938. Who knows if they are correct? Mortensen Abstract ‘s own website, as previous post, says he was born in Idaho, no date, and raised in Utah. This Mortensen is still an active abstract artist. But I suspect Jenny has done a lot more research than I, and we can but applaud her for working her way through the confusion. I certainly do not claim to have more accurate information than she has, and admit I have been, and possibly still am, confused by what I found on-line. I think this highlights the splendid efforts our presenters make on this thread. None of which, of course, detracts from the splendour of Mortensen Woodcut’s work, and we must thank Jenny for bringing him to our attention.