Duet

Ellen Lanyon attended SAIC, graduating in 1948. Duet exemplifies the artist’s conflation of her interests in early Italian metal-leaf methods and printmaking. The work was conceived at the University of Iowa, where Lanyon received a graduate degree in 1950, and revised in 1951 with additional plates and varying applications of gold and silver leaf. This experimentation served as the basis for the artist’s postgraduate study at the Courtauld Institute, London. Lanyon also taught at Ox-Bow beginning in 1960 and served as its academic director from 1972 to 1982.