Front Cover: William Seltzer
Rice. Pride Steps Forth. c. 1930. Color
woodblock print. 14¼ x 12¼ inches.
Collection of the Two Red Roses
Foundation.
This proud peacock is rendered
in rich, vibrant colors that
fill the artist’s tightly cropped
space to overflowing. Posed with
chest thrust out, one eye fixed
on the viewer, Rice’s peacock
becomes the embodiment of
decorative patterning and fine
craftsmanship as it also displays a
virtuoso woodcutting technique
and masterful multiple-color
printing in Pride Steps Forth. Associated
with the American Arts
and Crafts Movement, Rice first
studied with renowned book illustrator
Howard Pyle in Pennsylvania.
He relocated to California
in 1900, where he spent his
professional career teaching art
in the public schools. In 1915
he visited the Panama Pacific
International Exposition in San
Francisco, held to celebrate the
completion of the Panama Canal,
and was deeply influenced by the
Japanese woodblock prints he
saw there, adapting them to his
own techniques for the rest of
his career and publishing several
books on the subject.
