The Museum of Northern California Art will present a solo exhibition, entitled AFTER THE STORMS. FROM HEMLOCK TO LOTUS, which will include all the work in the book. From June 25 to August 9th, 2026. Artist Talk: July 11 at 3pm. See Monca website.
The book was featured in the 2024 Newsletter of the Achenbach Graphic Arts Council, the Legion one Honor, San Francisco.
The book documents the complete series of AFTER THE STORMS, all 48 panels, preserving the full arc from the poison hemlock suite to the triumphant closing series of the lotus flower. The book marks Spahr's transition from stone lithography to a new and untested medium for artwork: panels of Formica with a grain and hardness mimicking the lithographic stone.The surface allows for more monumental work, achieving a fusion of printmaking techniques and painting. Exquisite drawings combine with rubbed, scarred and incised surfaces in oils, ink and graphite.
AFTER THE STORMS is celebratory, work completed after the artist's experiences with mania went into remission.
Following the same format of her previous three books, the art work is followed by a generous selection of artist's notes that chronicle the excitement and frustration of working in a new and uncommon medium.They also highlight the climate of mind that gave rise to the images..
Spahr has taken part in more than 100 exhibitions, here and abroad, Her work is widely represented in public collections. She is featured in THE BEST OF PRINTMAKING. AN INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION, and in 2021, the Monterey Museum of Art presented a solo show of this body of work while in progress, entitled THE PRECIPICE WITHIN.
David Acton, in his book 60 YEARS OF AMERICAN PRINTMAKING, has summarized Spahr's work as follows: " Technical finesse, an open attitude to the creative progress, and deeply personal subject matter are typical of of the works of Herlinde Spahr."