Wood Engravers Network 2004 Exhibit
MCBA Star Tribune Foundation Gallery
June 26 - August 5

Held in conjunction with the eleventh anniversary celebration of the Wood Engravers Network (WEN), the WEN 2004 Exhibit will feature work by artists who practice the craft of hand engraving images in a hard-end grain wood, and then create relief prints from the resulting blocks.

Wood engraving was developed as an artistic technique in the 1790s and quickly became the most common method of illustration because of its fast and inexpensive production. Although the technique was replaced by photographic processes in the late 1800s, wood engraving regained stature as a dynamic method of artistic expression in the 1920s and thrives today due to its remarkable creative range.

Founded in 1994, the WEN is an organization of almost 200 artists scattered across North America and Europe. In addition to a newsletter and distribution of prints to share artists' work with other engravers,the WEN holds an annual workshop to bring together engravers of different levels of experience to share techniques and display members' work through an exhibition highlighting the history and current practice of wood engraving.