Friday, April 3, 2009

Harold Lukens Doolittle, Morning in Yosemite

HAROLD LUKENS DOOLITTLE

Morning in Yosemite
Aquatint (no date)

Harold Doolittle (1883-1974) was an etcher, furniture maker, and civil engineer from Southern California. Though he worked in all the graphic processes including photography and collotype, he is most known for his beautiful aquatints. Doolittle was an inventive man who built his own press and mezzotint rocker, and preferred to make his own linen paper.

Doolittle was born in Pasadena and studied at Cornell University and Throop Polytechnic Institute, now known as Caltech. He worked for many years as chief design engineer for the Southern California Edison Company.

He served as President of the California Print Makers in the 1940s and 1950s. Other memberships that he held included Pasadena Society of Artists, Society of American Graphic Artists, and several chapters of the Society of Etchers. Doolittle is represented in the Library of Congress, California State Library, and public libraries of the cities of New York and Los Angeles.

This biographical info provided online by two galleries representing Doolittle’s works: The Blue Heron Gallery and the Annex Galleries.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham