Raised in Montevideo, Uruguay, artist Antonio Frasconi had a long career that incorporated a global outlook rooted in his multilingual and multicultural upbringing. His contributions to the history of American Art are readily seen through his printmaking and bookmaking activities, some of which can be found in the Carter’s collections. Frasconi was a prolific artist, creating approximately 3,000 prints and 100 books during his lifetime. He represented Uruguay in the 1968 Venice Biennale, received awards such as the Caldecott Honor (1959) and New York Times Book of the Year (1955), and in 1986 became Distinguished Teaching Professor (Visual Arts) at Purchase College, State University of New York.

In 1945, Frasconi came to the United States, where he would live the rest of his life, on a grant to study at the Arts Students League in New York City. The country offered the young artist not just learning opportunities but new pathways to build his artistic career. Frasconi brought with him a developed woodcut printmaking practice which he had honed in Montevideo while studying at the Ateneo.

In New York, Frasconi befriended like-minded artists at the newly formed Workshop of Graphic Art. This left leaning printmaking studio, established in 1948, included artists like Charles White and Leonard Baskin. Frasconi contributed to three portfolios published by the workshop. For the portfolio People in Print (1950), the artist contributed two works, one of which, Happy Man, depicts a man with a wide smile proudly presenting his union card. As a working artist whose practice often blurred the line between commercial and fine art production, Frasconi strongly identified with the labor movement and the skilled craftsmen who made up a portion of its constituency.

While exhibiting at fine art galleries, Frasconi also found work producing illustrations for popular magazines, most notably Fortune. Frasconi’s printmaking proved an ideal medium for such outlets as the artwork could easily adapt to black and white or color printing. Such publications also afforded the artist to be seen by a new mass audience through their wide distribution networks.

In 1954, Frasconi extended his printmaking practice into the genre of book arts through an invitation to create the first limited edition artist’s book for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The work, Twelve Fables of Aesop, was produced in collaboration with Joseph Blumenthal, founder of the American fine press Spiral Press. The book was produced using the artist’s original printing blocks and shows both technical printmaking and bookmaking mastery. Its artistic and commercial success helped initiate MoMA’s approximately 60-year publishing program of limited artist’s books. Twelve Fables of Aesop was also the beginning of a nearly two-decade working relationship between Blumenthal and Frasconi which would last until the closure of Spiral Press in 1971.

The book format proved to be an amenable medium for Frasconi, both through its intertwined history with printmaking and the artist’s interest in narrative, which could be linked to his commercial illustration work. In 1955 Frasconi published his first widely available book See and Say: A Picture Book in Four Languages, which would be the first in a long line of children’s books he would create during his life. The quadrilingual book featuring English, Spanish, Italian, and French reflected his multilingual upbringing and a point of connection with his two young sons who were born and raised in the United States. In his introduction, the artist wrote “the idea that there are many nationalities speaking many languages is to me one of the most important for a child to understand.” This sentiment would echo throughout the many books Frasconi would write and illustrate throughout his life.

Today the Carter owns numerous prints and books by Frasconi that reflect his serious, often playful, approach to artistic practice. Throughout work that ranged from multilingual children’s books or more outwardly politically engaged prints and artist’s books, Frasconi maintained a common thread that sought to engage society through civic awareness and presents individuals with grace and dignity, regardless of age or cultural background. It is this artistic vision that I find makes Frasconi’s work continue to resonate today.