2024 spitzack barbara dead or alive vitos cat cougar woodcut print woodblock mokuhanga seattle art artist relief printmaking lino linocut
- Image courtesy of
- Artist website (Charles Spitzack)
This 2024 print references Vito's, a Seattle restaurant, alongside a cat-cougar subject and the wanted-poster phrasing 'dead or alive.' The composition appears to operate as a narrative or character portrait rooted in specific Seattle cultural landmarks. The cat-to-cougar progression suggests Spitzack is working with scale or transformation imagery, the domestic cat shading toward its larger Pacific Northwest relative. As a mokuhanga work, the print would be produced through carved cherrywood or shina blocks inked with rice-paste-bound pigments and impressed by hand [baren](/glossary/baren) onto [washi](/glossary/washi) paper, a process that distinguishes mokuhanga from the oil-based linocuts the catalog also lists. The wanted-poster framing connects the print to American vernacular graphic traditions — saloon ephemera, Western iconography — translated into Japanese technique. This kind of cultural recombination characterizes Spitzack's 2024 output and the broader contemporary American mokuhanga movement, where Japanese craft methods carry distinctly local subject matter.
Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
2024 spitzack barbara dead or alive vitos cat cougar woodcut print woodblock mokuhanga seattle art artist relief printmaking lino linocut was created by Charles Spitzack.
2024 spitzack barbara dead or alive vitos cat cougar woodcut print woodblock mokuhanga seattle art artist relief printmaking lino linocut depicts cats.
