"Born near Arnegard, North Dakota on April 27, 1938, Mortensen received his BFA degree with Honors in 1964 from the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and he was enrolled in the graduate program at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul between 1969 and 1972. Originally a portrait painter, Mortensen almost entirely abandoned that media for reduction woodcutting, achieving the creative freedom he desired. He is one of the few practicing artists of this method in the United States.... Early in his printmaking career, Mortensen circulated his color woodcuts via exhibitions in the Midwest. His work reached a wider audience in 1976 when participated in the Brooklyn Museum National Print Exhibition and the following year he joined the Boston Printmakers. Mortensen describes his reduction woodcut process: Only one woodblock is used. On it an image is drawn in India ink. Before the first color is printed, any areas that are to remain unprinted (white or the color of the paper) are cut away from the surface of the block. Then an oil base ink is used to print the first color on all of the sheets of paper that are to be used for the edition and proofs. After the first printing the block is again cut, removing any surface of the block that is to remain the first color in the..." https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/1661/Mortensen/Gordon "...one of the best known reduction woodcut print artists working in the U.S today. He works from watercolor studies to understand the color dynamics needed for the woodcut. The artist uses up to sixty-four colors and takes as long as three months to create the woodblock image. Although the final outcome has a painterly feel, it is unmistakably a woodcut with rich layered colors and wood grain textures. His early images mostly represent the upper Midwest landscape, and areas around where he lived in North Dakota." https://www.davidsongalleries.com/artists/contemporary/gordon-mortensen/ undefined

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