Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Cliff Dweller

Pedro de Lemos

Date

c. 1915–20

Medium

Color woodcut

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This tree could be Old Veteran, a famous Monterey cypress that still clings to the rocky cliff at Point Lobos, along California’s Pacific coast. Pedro de Lemos used opaque white paint to accentuate its weather-ravaged roots and bark. He then fortified the upper parts with rich, velvety blacks. Lemos’s parents emigrated from the Portuguese Azores. Marie Lemos raised their four children; Francisco Lemos made boots. When Pedro heard about a Spanish nobleman with the last name of de Lemos, however, he decided to adopt that lineage as his own. In 1933, he squeezed the aristocratic-sounding “de” into his signature on prints he’d made earlier, as he did here. United States, Americas

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