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= Stefan Martin, Master Wood Engraver, Printmaker, Artist (1936-1994) = Stefan Martin, born in 1936 in Elgin, Illinois, is a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago (B.F.A.). He majored in painting, drawing and graphics.

He was an Engraver at the Sander Wood Engraving Company in Chicago, Illinois, 1954-19581. The late Ben Shahn (1896-1969), long-time friend, said Stefan was, "a full Master at a youthful age, Martin then converted his high craft to the service of his sensitive and poetic feelings. Grouped or single figures shape and reshape themselves in the penumbra of vague shadows in his work. Or aspects of nature emerge through a perfection of lines."  Stefan once said of himself, "Art is best made from the edge of life".

Wood engraving is a print technique demanding extraordinary skill and patience. Martin used blocks of laminated boxwood, engraving the end-grain with tools called burins (gravers). The blocks were expensive to purchase because end-grain wood must be a section through the trunk or large bough of a tree. The block is then inked and printed on handmade Okawara Japanese rice paper on a turn-of-the-century hand press. Martin then modified certain areas by hand rubbing, giving each print a slightly different value and character. A very hard, tacky ink is used so the fine lines and dots are not filled in, thus achieving the crisp, clean image. Martin did his own printing on a press that was made in 18902. It has no motors. Wood engravings differ from woodcuts as the blocks are cut on the end-grain, not the plank (as in a woodcut). He demonstrated his art at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Stefan Martin has earned world-wide recognition for his mastery of the exacting art of end-grain wood engraving. This relief type of printmaking was the major form of illustrative reproduction for virtually every book, newspaper and magazine prior to the turn of the 19th century, improvements in the halftone proces s rendered this kind of reproductive engraving obsolete and wood engraving was left free to develop as a creative right by studio artist.

His much admired prints and incised paintings (collages) are in private collections and museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Chicago Art Institute, the Wall Street Journal, among many others. The artist lived and worked in Roosevelt, New Jersey. He unfortunately drowned nearby in a boating accident at age 58, in October 19943.

Notable Collections

Ben Shahn, Martin Luther King, 1966, wood engraving by Stefan Martin, after a drawing by Ben Shahn, 18 5⁄8 × 15 1⁄4 in. (47.3 × 38.7 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Michael J. Ettner, 2021.88.247.

Stefan Martin, Self-Portrait, 1985, wood engraving Sheet: 36.8 x 26.7 cm (14 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.), Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2012.1400.11.

The artwork print, Holocaust, wood engraving by Stefan Martin is part of the collection at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. There is a hand of hope and a dove up in the left corner.

References