Blessing

Blessing (祈求, 1970) is an early color intaglio dating from the period immediately after Liao left Paris, where he had studied at S.W. Hayter's Atelier 17 from 1965 to 1968, and settled in New York. The medium and support — color intaglio on BFK Rives wove paper — are characteristic of Atelier 17 production: a single inked plate worked in multiple viscosities so that several colors print in one pass. The Chinese title 祈求 means 'to pray for' or 'to entreat,' and the 'Religious' tag aligns the print with Liao's first major series of folk-religious subjects, the works that established the vocabulary he would refine for the next half-century. Sheets from 1970 typically present centered, emblem-like compositions — paired roundels, talismanic forms, or stylized offerings — printed in the deep, slightly granular color characteristic of viscosity intaglio. The print precedes Liao's introduction of gold leaf and the rigid 'Gate' grid, and shows the moment when his Taiwanese subject matter and his Atelier 17 technique first fused.