Mexican Barber Shop

Beautiful image of a small village with a barbershop in the foreground with it's sign hanging and it's shadow being cast across the door. This print is in as-issued original condition from the Prairie Print Makers in 1938 including the folder.

Charles M 'Chili' Capps (1898-1981) is recognized for his outstanding artistry in printmaking, known best for his use of the aquatint medium in evoking the landscape and architecture of New Mexico and the Midwest. His mastery of the challenging process of aquatint and its tonal variations allowed Capps to achieve an arresting and richly textured evocation of the adobe architectural forms of Santa Fe and Taos. Capps was also one of the leading members of the movement in the early-mid 20th century that sought to promote printmaking as a serious art form, serving as President of the Prairie Printmakers for twenty-three years, a group that also included Gustave Baumann, Norma Bassett Hall, and Gene Kloss, among others.

Charles M. Capps was born in Jacksonville, Illinois in 1898. After graduating from Illinois College in Jacksonville in 1920, he went on to attend the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Upon returning to Jacksonville, Capps married Anna Palmer and the couple moved to Wichita where Capps worked for the commercial printing house, Western Lithograph. Soon he began experimenting with woodcuts, creating a series of award-winning bookplates, and from 1931, he began creating an outstanding body of etchings and aquatints.

Capps was active in the Society of American Etchers, the Chicago Society of Etchers, Philadelphia Society of Etchers, Northwest Printmakers and Printmakers Society of California. It was through associations with colleagues Gustave Baumann and Doel Reed that he visited New Mexico and returned often. His subject matter shifted to Southwestern imagery beginning in 1937, leading to many of his most cherished images.