Lance Letscher: Collage

An established American artist with a growing international reputation, Lance Letscher transforms found paper into works of art that are mysteriously evocative, often playful, and graphically beautiful. Letscher precisely cuts and recombines scraps of old books and letters, children's school exercises, recipes, album covers, and other ephemera into motifs that suggest forms abstract and representational. In these collages, which vary from small works on paper to elaborate constructions as large as nine by fourteen feet, Letscher emerges as a skilled colorist and abstractionist who allows blocks of color and fragments of phrases to open up intriguing avenues of memory and association. Lance Letscher: Collage is the first full-length monograph on this important artist. It presents a catalog of 118 works dating from 2001 to 2008, accompanied by essays that explore Letscher's artistic development and place in contemporary art. Charles Dee Mitchell, a well-known critic and arts writer, recounts the artist's journey from academically trained improvisational sculptor to creator of collages using found materials. Brooke Davis Anderson traces Letscher's fruitful connections with prominent Outsider and self-taught artists, including James Castle, Martin Ramirez, Adolf Wolfli, and the quilters of Gee's Bend.