Robert O. Hodgell prints

Green Room

Robert O. Hodgell
Christ Scourged
Linoleum cut
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. W. G. Simpson, 1970.
1989.008

Robert O. Hodgell
Crucified
Linoleum cut
Gift of J. Mac McPherson, 2000.
2000.075

These tortured prints, tissue laid on inked reliefs hand-burnished by the artist, are in their realism reminiscent of visions rendered in paintings of Christ’s Passion by Mathias Grünwald. Like the German Renaissance master, Hodgell avoided softening the excruciation endured in an expiatory death.

Son of a Methodist pastor in Makato, Kansas, Robert Overman Hodgell (1922–2000) studied printmaking at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Alfred Sessler. In 1939 Hodgell was hired as apprentice, and then assistant, by American Regionalist painter John Steuart Curry (1897–1946) who was at work on his final major commission, the murals in the Kansas State Capitol building. Following service in the U. S. Navy during World War II Hodgell began teaching: Des Moines Art Center, University of Illinois—Urbana, Florida Presbyterian (later Eckerd) College, Ringling School of Art, and the University of South Florida. In addition to watercolors and oil paintings, Hodgell is well-known for his linoleum and wood cut prints which can be found in collections across the country, including the Library of Congress, the Miller Art Museum in Wisconsin, and the Ringling Museum of Art. His illustrations are features of a number of journals, children’s books, and other publications. At least two appear in the Bridwell Library general collections, Albert Howard Carter, For Magi, Shepherd, and Us, and a work by the founding director of the SMU film library, G. William Jones, The Innovator and Other Modern Parables.