A FOCUS ON PAPER:
The Cast Paper Period (1977 & onward)
Frank Gallo with The Actress, ca. 1980; Frank Gallo Archives
A FOCUS ON PAPER:
The Cast Paper Period (1977 & onward)
Frank Gallo with The Actress, ca. 1980; Frank Gallo Archives
EXPERIMENTING WITH ALTERNATE MEDIUMS: The early 1970s
In the early 1970s, Gallo became concerned about the toxic effects of the epoxy resin fabrication process. He wearied of donning a mask to protect himself from the dust, heat, and noxious fumes emanating from the translucent, glowing epoxy. Per Gallo, "It was a stinking, sticky process. There was nothing beautiful or romantic about it." In response to these health concerns, Gallo experimented with other artistic mediums, including glass, printmaking, and ceramics.
In 1970, while serving as the head of the Sculpture Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Gallo also operated a serigraphy, aka silkscreen printing, studio in the Center for Advanced Studies at UIUC; the studio and the resulting "low-relief sculptures" were a natural extension of his printmaking studies with Mauricio Lasansky at the University of Iowa in the late 1950s. In addition to the serigraphy prints, Gallo also created numerous lithographs and ceramic tile reliefs throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1972, Gallo studied glass during a stay at the Daum Crystallier in Nancy, France. He was impressed by artists such as Georges Despret (1862 - 1952) and Emile Galle (1846 - 1904), celebrated for their work in porcelain-like pate de varre ("paste of glass"), a casting technique using ground glass, a binder, and a fluxing medium, then fused by firing.
Examples of his serigraphs, lithographs, and ceramic tile relief appear below.
Frank Gallo, Galatea, ca. early 1980s
Glass sculpture; 12-1/8" x 4" x 4" (Download here)
CAST PAPER: "Clean and pure"
In 1976, Gallo began to explore the techniques of cast paper at the Historical International Institute of Experimental Printmaking in San Francisco. Garner Tullis (1939 - 2019) founded the Institute in 1973 in Santa Cruz, CA, before its relocation to San Francisco. Tullis created the Institute as an experimental printmaking and papermaking workshop that emphasized new paper technologies and artist/printer collaboration.
For Gallo, cast paper combined the possibility of creating multiple images with the three-dimensionality of sculpture. Most importantly, it afforded Gallo the ability to obtain more subtle effects with light and shadow than had been possible with epoxy sculpture. Cast paper sculpture was clean, pliable, and iridescent. Per Gallo, "The purity appealed to me alot. No glue, no binders, no fillers--just cellulose, fiber, and water."
Years later Gallo reflected upon the impact of paper upon himself as an artist and as a person:
"I sometimes think that working in paper has made me a better person. The purity of paper, symbolically and chemically, seems to require raised consciousness and higher creative thinking and goals. It has taken a long time to develop paper to my uses, but I am happy to be working with it."
Garner Tullis, Untitled, from series "The Artist Saw the Light," 1980
Invaluable.com Acrylic on handmade paper (Download here)
MASTERING THE CAST PAPER PROCESS: Experimentation & Invention
"Cast paper is a brilliant medium. In its unadulterated purity, it is pearlescent. There are no somber dark tones in its modelled geography. The relationships of light and dark begin and end in the higher frequencies. . . . "
In 1978, via a grant from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Gallo conducted extensive research in paper casting and developed new techniques at a studio he established outside Urbana, IL.
When Gallo began experimenting with the idea of paper sculpture, he first created a large figurative relief and cast it in paper, using cotton linter pulp (a processed pulp made from the short, fuzzy fibers left on cottonseeds after the main long fibers are removed). The initial results were disappointing because shrinkage distorted the shallow relief (of the sculpture).
To offset the distortion, Gallo developed a restraining system employing hundreds of pounds of gutter spikes supported in heavy screens. The spikes restrained the castings and allowed forced air to circulate uniformly over the surface of the casting. This technique provided Gallo the depth he sought for the low-relief sculptures; please see the accompanying photograph.
"A deep line or groove in cast paper is not a dark accent; in direct light it becomes a luminous, scintillating fissure. What would appear raw in bronze or stone, translates into feathery atmospheric gestures in the whiteness of paper."
To express the delicate features of individual images, Gallo used multiple types of plant fibers and other materials, within the papermaking process, including abaca and jute fibers, blonde burlap and clay, sisal and cotton fibers, etc. The combination of these elements created a pletorha of colors and "feels" for the sculptures, ranging from a warm, oatmeal color to a dazzling white, all in varying textures.
The instructional manuals, one co-authored by Gallo, and the newspaper article from 1988 appearing below demonstrate Gallo's commitment to the science of papermaking and the cast paper sculpture process.
Frank Gallo at Cast Paper Station, undated
Frank Gallo Archives (Download here)
Howard Clark Hand Papermaker's Press, undated
Frank Gallo Archives (Download here)
Viki Ford-Boskey and Frank Gallo
A Guide to Sheet Forming & Paper Casting, 1985
Frank Gallo Archives (Download here)
Kathryn Kerr
Sculpting Solid Success, Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, 07-08-1988
Frank Gallo Archives (Download here)
EDITIONS IN CAST PAPER: Business follows the economic cycle
In 1978 Gallo founded Editions in Cast Paper where he began developing local paper artists in his studio: "Some were graduates of the sculpture program which I headed at the University of Illinois. My two children even joined my crew." Subsequently, Gallo began producing the work of other artists in cast paper, including Victor Vasarely, Agam, Rene Gruau, Peter Max, and Marvel Comics:
"An artist, no matter how creative nor however highly technically oriented, cannot translate his own work into paper without the many years of experience that are necessary to anticipate the sort of innovations required to transcend the medium and create art of lasting value."
In 1978, Gallo created The Dancer, his first cast paper sculpture, published by Circle Fine Art. Editions in Cast Paper would operate until January 2005, experiencing ups-and-downs associated with societal and consumer trends. At the high point of operations in 1989, Editions in Cast Paper had up to 20 employees. Unfortunately, the company's production boom of the late 1980s was not sustainable. Hit hard by the economic recession of the early 1990s, by 1995, the company was a two-person business, Gallo and his son, Joseph. (See At What Cost Success? for a further discussion of Editions in Cast Paper.)
Frank Gallo, The Dancer, 1978
Private Collection of Jim McSweeney
Cast paper sculpture, 34" x 55" (Download here)