In the Middle of America, Printmaking and Print Exhibitions: C. A. Seward and Friends, Wichita, Kansas, 1916-1946 by Barbara Thompson

Kansas’s impressive legacy of graphic art

When you think of important and influential art centers in America, chances are Kansas doesn’t pop into your head. In her 2013 book In the Middle of America, however, author Barbara Thompson reminds us that the city of Wichita was a thriving center of printmaking in the early 20th century. Thompson, an independent art historian, is also the granddaughter of C. A. Seward, an accomplished printmaker who was the driving force behind the Wichita arts scene and its particular interest in printmaking. Seward, a founder of the Prairie Print Makers and its most active member, organized many print exhibitions in Kansas and facilitated the exchange of prints and printing knowledge between Kansas printmakers and artists elsewhere in the United States and Canada. In the Middle of America, Printmaking and Print Exhibitions is the joint exhibition catalog for four concurrent printmaking exhibitions held in Wichita in 2013. In this book Thompson provides a wealth of detail on the history of the Wichita arts community and Seward’s activities to advance and promote art in the media of lithography, etching, and block prints.

In conjunction with his involvement in the Prairie Printmakers and the Wichita Art Association, Seward assembled a series of print exhibitions in Wichita from 1921 until his death in 1939. Thompson catalogs the prints that appeared in these exhibitions and discusses the artists, inside and outside of Kansas, who made them, including some of the most highly regarded printmakers in America and Canada at the time. In addition to an overall history of the regional printmaking movement in Kansas, Thompson provides biographical sketches of 79 printmakers and examples of their work. These biographies are not comprehensive but rather emphasize the artists’ connections to the Wichita arts scene. Thompson also looks into the impact made on American printmaking by the Western Lithograph Company, a commercial printer that, under Seward’s direction, diversified into producing prints by fine art lithographers.

Thompson’s writing is very informative and her research extremely thorough. The design of the book, however, is not great. It looks like it was typeset in Microsoft Word, and the long lines of Times Roman are not easy on the eyes. Instead of full-page photos, this book opts for many smaller images, around 1.5 x 2.5 inches each. I’m fine with that decision, because it provides more prints to view, but the way all the images are shoved into the gutter of the book does not make for comfortable browsing.

If you are looking for an introduction to the Prairie Print Makers, filled with big beautiful pictures, this is probably not the book for you. You would be better off reading Thompson’s 1984 book with George C. Foreman and Howard Ellington entitled The Prairie Print Makers, or the 2001 book of the same title authored by Bill North, Karal Ann Marling, and Elizabeth Seaton. In the Middle of America is a book for those who already have some prior knowledge of Kansas’s great printmaking history and are looking for more intricate and arcane details, of which Thompson amply delivers. This book will appeal to a very particular audience of readers: artists and collectors who appreciate realistic early modern printmaking and Kansans and Wichitans interested in the history of their state and/or city. Readers like me who fit into the specific intersection point of that Venn diagram will enjoy this book very much and find it loaded with valuable information.

Prints reproduced in the book

Lloyd C. Foltz, Among the Mines, block print, 1931

Birger Sandzén, Utah Poplars, lithograph, 1930

Gustave Baumann, Mountain Pool, block print, 1922