

American Etching by Dean Dass
Contemporary Unique Art Entitled: Prana - Breath: There’s Nothing That Is Not Food by Dean Dass | 1980
Age:1980
Descriptive qualities& condition:
Dimensions: Image - 11-13/16” x 8-7/8”; Sheet - 17” x 13-9/16”
This hand-colored etching with collage is rarely seen for sale. After an extensive search, we found only one other piece in the Brooklyn Museum. This unique piece represents one of his earlier works. It evokes a beautiful austerity and an early mystical media-rich expression on paper. Compared to his later work, his etchings and drypoints employ minimal, muted colors to express his thoughts. Professor Dass is a master of atmospheric effects, which add mood and veracity to this wonderful piece.
Dass acknowledges the stylistic and technical differences of his work but maintains that the two are closely tied. “It’s always been the question that everyone asks, that I ask myself, even,” said Dass. “What am I doing, what are these two things going on? But formally they’re coming together more, though that’s not something I focus on. The piece is titled by hand (left-hand corner), and signed “Dass” in graphite, (lower right-hand corner).
Condition: Excellent, and was originally created. The piece is archivally framed with acid-free matting, covered in Plexiglas, in a contemporary and simple wood frame.
NOTE ABOUT THE ARTIST: Dean Dass was born in 1955 and studied art, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa, B.A. 1978. His M.F.A. is from The Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, 1980.
He has taught at the University of Virginia beginning in 1985. For almost thirty years Dass has exhibited his works on paper, paintings, artist's books, and sculpture throughout the United States and abroad. Early in his career, in the 1980s, he was invited to participate in three National Print Invitational Exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (1981, 1983, 1989). Dass has received an Individual Fellowship from the State of Pennsylvania Arts Council (1985), the State of Virginia Commission for the Arts Printmaking Prize (1988), the State of Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Fellowship (1994), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Individual Fellowship (1999). The University of Virginia has also supported his creative work with Fellowships to study and exhibit abroad for extended periods (the Netherlands in 1993, Finland in 1997, 2001, Ireland in 2009). In 2007 Dass received a Sesquicentennial Research Fellowship from the University of Virginia that enabled him to work and travel for one month in Imatra and two months in Paris. In 2003 Dass received the All-University Teaching Award at the University of Virginia. He was the only candidate for this award nominated by students.
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