Block Printer, Author, and Graphic Artist

Janet Doub Erickson (born Janet Ann Doub) is an American graphic artist and writer who popularized linoleum-block and woodblock printing

Woodblock printing

Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....

 in the post-World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 period, both through her art and through her writings. Born to a pioneering Western Maryland farming family (the Doub (family)

Doub (family)

-The Doub Family :The Doub family is a French family that emigrated from the Moselle region of France to the New World, spreading widely in mid-Atlantic colonial America...

) in Hagerstown, Maryland

Hagerstown, Maryland

Hagerstown is a city in northwestern Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Washington County, and, by many definitions, the largest city in a region known as Western Maryland. The population of Hagerstown city proper at the 2010 census was 39,662, and the population of the...

 in 1924, she spent her early years in Boonsboro, Maryland

Boonsboro, Maryland

Boonsboro is a town in Washington County, Maryland, United States, located at the foot of South Mountain. It nearly borders Frederick County and is proximate to the Antietam National Battlefield...

, where her father’s ancestors had settled in the eighteenth century and subsequently farmed continuously. She moved to New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 in the nineteen thirties to be closer to her mother’s family, which was of colonial Yankee

Yankee

The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...

 descent. She disastrously returned to the south during the nineteen thirties, and after dropping out of the University of Mary Washington

University of Mary Washington

The University of Mary Washington is a public, coeducational liberal arts college located in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA. Founded in 1908 by the Commonwealth of Virginia as a normal school, during much of the twentieth century it was part of the University of Virginia, until...

, Erickson attended the Massachusetts College of Art

Massachusetts College of Art

Massachusetts College of Art and Design is a publicly-funded college of visual and applied art, founded in 1873. It is one of the oldest art schools, the only publicly-funded free-standing art school in the United States, and was the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree...

, graduating in the nineteen forties, and founded with partner Paul Coombs “Blockhouse of Boston” soon thereafter, achieving commercial success with her innovative approaches to block-printing. After marrying author Evarts Erickson in the 1950s she moved to Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 for several years with a fellowship from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople...

. In Guadalajara

Guadalajara, Jalisco

Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...

 and then Oaxaca

Oaxaca

Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...

 she studied Mexican printmaking

Printmaking

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

 techniques and had several children, subsequently returning to a professorship in the United States.

Artistic Career

Profiled and photographed by Gjon Mili

Gjon Mili

Gjon Mili was an Albanian-American photographer best known for his work published in Life.-Biography:Born to Vasil Mili and Viktori Cekani in Korçë, Albania, Mili came to the United States in 1923. In 1939, Mili landed a job as a freelance photographer for Life...

 in the now defunct newsweekly Life

Life (magazine)

Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

in 1951, she was nicknamed “Jumping Janet” for her practice of jumping on her linoleum and wood blocks to make the ink stick deeper into the textiles she was printing. She was also the subject of profiles in the art magazines Craft Horizons and American Artist , and won a first prize in textile design from the American Craftsmen's Council in 1954. In 1961 Erickson wrote Blockprinting on Textiles (which went into two editions and a number of printings). A 1966 book she co-wrote with Adelaide Sproul, Printmaking Without A Press popularized both traditional and her own more innovative linoleum and wood-cut printing techniques at a time when block printing was on the verge of extinction in the United States. Fortuitously timed with a renaissance in interest in traditional crafts during the sixties, the book further spurred interest in Janet Doub Erickson's art. In 1989 she published her early line drawings in the retrospective book Drawings of Old Boston Houses. Her prints, drawings, and paintings have been purchased for the permanent collections of the Wadsworth Atheneum

Wadsworth Atheneum

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and...

, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Saudi Arabian Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. (She lived in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 for a number of years.) She is also represented in private collections throughout the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

Personal Life

In the nineteen sixties she moved to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, where she lived for more than a decade prior to moving to Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 (then-Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

), then Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, and finally to the Middle East, before returning to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. In 2001 she moved to her long-time summer residence on Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

, where she currently resides. In Wellfleet she has done historical research on New England vernacular housing. Now retired as a printmaker, in recent years she has written for a variety of textile and architectural magazines, and recently retired from her position on the Wellfleet, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, Historical Commission..