Andrew Nagem "Me" — Signed Etching with Aquatint, 1991 View Watchlist >
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Lot # F619
System ID # 29317396
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Andrew Nagem "Me" — Signed Etching with Aquatint, 1991
A signed etching with aquatint by Andrew Nagem, the Las Cruces–based figurative artist whose wit runs through every line. The image is a self-portrait in the loosest, most honest sense of the word: a round face crowned with an untameable spiral of curls, oversized eyes with starburst pupils, a wrinkled brow, and a hatched, slightly bemused mouth — all riding above the abbreviated geometry of a shirt collar. The title, penciled at lower left in quotation marks, is the punchline: "ME". The stippled aquatint ground wraps the face in a warm, mottled field of dots that gives the sheet depth and atmosphere well beyond the economy of its line.
The platemark is clean and well-impressed, the ink rich and even across the full image area. Nagem builds his figures from confident, unbroken contours — the kind of line that doesn't hedge or correct itself — then uses the aquatint field not as filler but as mood, the dot density shifting from heavy at the margins to open at the center of the face, drawing the eye inward. Pencil signature and date — Andrew Nagem 91 — appear at lower right in the artist's hand, with the title inscribed in block capitals at lower left, both in the standard below-platemark convention of a hand-signed print. Nagem has exhibited widely in southern New Mexico and maintains ties to the New Mexico State University art community; his figurative and caricature work appears in regional collections throughout the Mesilla Valley. This self-portrait is characteristic of his printmaking at its most direct and unguarded — small in scale, large in personality.
CONDITION
Good. No remarkable damage to the work itself; sheet shows mild toning consistent with thirty-plus years of age. Minor scuffing to the frame with a spot of finish loss and light surface rust on one edge of the molding.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Overall (framed): 12 1/4" H × 14 3/4" W × 1 1/2" D
- Visible image: 5 3/4" H × 7" W
- Medium: Etching with aquatint
- Signed lower right (pencil): "Andrew Nagem 91"
- Titled lower left (pencil): "ME"
- Frame: Black wood with mat, glazed
