Shown in conjunction with KARL KASTEN: PAINTINGS at the California Heritage Gallery, also at 300 de Haro St.

A 64-page catalog accompanies the exhibition. Written by Dr. Landauer, Chief Curator of the San Jose Museum and the Center’s founding curator, the catalog also contains an introduction by Robert Flynn Johnson, curator of the Achenbach Foundation. Partially funded by the Florsheim Foundation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, and private donors, the catalog was designed by Kathleen Burch and printed by George Lithograph. With many 4-color plates and duotones, the softcover edition is available for $15, or $25 for the hardback. Plans are afoot for a $250 edition that contains a special limited edition print produced by Kasten just for this catalog.

It gives the Center great pleasure to present the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Karl Kasten’s prints and handmade books. Since the 1950s, Kasten has been a leading printmaker of his generation in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has originated many experimental printmaking techniques and established the printmaking workshop at U.C. Berkeley in 1950 at a time when most modernists in America viewed that medium as merely commercial or illustrational. By word and by work, Kasten has mounted a persuasive argument to elevate printmaking to fine arts status, a parallel argument found in book arts today.

Technical invention has been Kasten’s hallmark: whether transforming collagraphy–a printing process that combines collage with etching–through the use of familiar and exotic objects from poker chips to ocean squids, by inventing the vacuum-formed plate, or by practically re-inventing the wheel itself with his brilliant design for the KB etching press.

Stylistically, Kasten’s work defies categorization: he often chooses the quirky and unexpected, rather than the steady course, preferring to “break type,” to borrow the phrase of his teacher, aesthetician Stephen Pepper. At age 83, a U.C. Berkeley Professor Emeritus, Kasten’s thirst for expanding the parameters of printmaking continues unabated, such as his revival of Gauguin’s printmaking techniques (see gallery talk for August). For Kasten, it matters little whether his creative catalysts are old or new, whether they are drawn from the present or the past. He has found inspiration everywhere, from the Byzantine ruins at Cappadocia to the medieval mosaics of Ravenna. Kasten’s credo is summed up by Michaelangelo’s phrase, which he often likes to quote: “Ancora imparo”—I still learn.

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