Frederick Mershimer

With evocative precision, Frederick Mershimer (American, b. 1958) masters the mezzotint. Its arduous process succumbs to technical virtuosity as he gently coaxes seemingly infinite tonal variations from the rocked plate. In an expansive body of work, the medium of mezzotint has allowed Mershimer, as he admits, “to manipulate lighting and shadow, the final details, texture and other pictorial elements to conjure a sense of place…”

That sense of place, the self-professed emotional core of his work, emanates from Mr. Mershimer’s transplanted roots in New York City. A native of Sharon Pennsylvania, he earned his B.F.A. in 1980 from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon School of Art, where he majored in painting and drawing. After graduation, he spent two years dedicated to his painting in San Francisco, supporting himself by working as a framer. In 1983, he opted to travel back East, to New York City, landing a framing job at the Newmark Gallery, a small print gallery on the Upper East Side, introducing him to mezzotint. This prompted him to further his studies by exploring printmaking at The New School, Pratt, and the Manhattan Graphics Center, making Brooklyn his home. Rather than eschewing it, Mershimer gravitated towards the methodically laborious mezzotint process; at first, because of its similarity to his approach to drawing. He came to embrace the medium and its capacity for nuanced chiaroscuro. With the segue to mezzotint, Mershimer moved away from purely figural subject matter towards the commanding cityscapes of New York City. As he reflects: “My images explore the dynamic between the city’s architecture, and our place within this imposing environment. Having always been unsure of how to understand the world around me, I find a sense of control by creating dramatic settings in which events can unfold.”

Fredrick Mershimer’s urban imagery projects the eerie Precisionist clarity of Edward Hopper infused with the energy of the Ashcan artists, fueled by the richness of mezzotint. Ostensibly, the focus of his work is architectural while in actuality, as he notes, “night, with the transforming property of its light, is often the subject of my work,” a subject that is readily amenable to all the qualities that mezzotint can afford. This is the hallmark of Pinnacle. The scene itself is easily identifiable: the landmarks of Cleveland’s Public Square. Ever the “romantic dreamer” exerting control, he does not routinely represent the familiar.

Contrast is one of the central traits of my vision and it is in full display in Pinnacle. First there is the juxtaposing of the lower facades of the Euclid Avenue business district with the tall Terminal Tower in the background. In the foreground the short dark transit lane dividers have a conversation with the grand civic Soldiers and Sailor Monument off in the distance. But the main reason I was drawn to this scene is the playful curved lines of the neon bowling pins being set against the very formal details of the regal Terminal Tower. The pins tumble while the tower reaches to the sky.
Not just an exercise in formal juxtaposition and textural chiaroscuro, Pinnacle, in its austerity, delicacy, and whimsy “conjures” that much sought-after, elusive “sense of place.”

Frederick Mershimer’s work is in the collections of major institutions such as the Library of Congress, the Fogg Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 2007, Stone and Press published a catalogue raisonné of his work titled Frederick Mershimer: Mezzotints 1984-2006.

By Darlene G. Michitsch
Pinnacle, 2018. The Print Club of Cleveland, Publication Print No. 99 for 2021
Mezzotint on Somerset textured paper
Image: 9.5 x 12.375 in. Sheet: 15 x 18.5 in.
Edition of 275 includes 25 proofs for the artist