The Old Days In and Near Salem Oregon 1940 Constance E. Fowler SIGNED Association Copy ~ Woodcuts of Historic Salem ~ History

Title: The Old Days In and Near Salem Oregon

Author: Written and Illustrated by Constance E. Fowler

Description: First edition limited to 250 copies. Association copy, inscribed by Fowler. Includes original promotional broadsheet. Black and white decorative floral cloth with title in brown on front cover. 20 wood-engravings printed from the original wood blocks on heavy paper, each individually signed and titled by the artist and faced by a printed explanatory statement. The final print has a small blemish, else fine. Dust jacket has a few short closed tears on the front panel, but is otherwise free of any chipping; in a new archival mylar sleeve. Folio. Approximately 15 x 12 inches. 30 ff.

Constance Edith Fowler (1907-1996), painter, printmaker, and educator, earned her Master of Fine Arts at Willamette University in 1940. The twenty wood engravings here presented, illustrating historic sites and scenes in the Willamette Valley (all within 30 miles of Salem), served as her thesis project. She taught at Willamette between 1935 and 1947 and then at Albion College, Michigan, from 1947 to 1965. During her years in Oregon, her work was exhibited in the Portland Art Museum and Seattle Art Museum's annual exhibitions of Northwest art, and in 1939 was one of the official Oregon exhibitors at the New York World's Fair.

Inscribed on the ffep: ''For Murray Wade - / whose parents and grand-parents / helped to build ''the Old Days'' in Salem and whose interest / and information has aided me / in recording a bit of Salem's past. / Sincerely, / Constance E. Fowler.'' One of the engravings shows Murray's father's store, built in 1867 in North Salem. Murray Wade (1876-1961) was a prominent Oregon cartoonist, journalist and historian. A native of Salem, he was born at 852 N. Liberty St., in the same house in which he died.

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Jacket Condition: Near Fine

Publisher: Printed by Frank McCaffrey at his Dogwood Press
Place: Seattle
Year: 1940

Keywords: Willamette Valley, Marion County, Oregon, Willamette University, Murray Wade, woodblock, engravings, association copy.