Bird Machine #3

Dorothy Dehner

c. 1952 (printed 1993)

Etching

Nasher Sculpture Center

Printmaking was pivotal to Dehner’s work as a sculptor. In 1952, she was introduced to printmaking at Atelier 17, the innovative workshop founded by Stanley William Hayter. Dehner credited the process of engraving, in which the artist scratches directly into a copper plate with a stylus called a burin, with reawakening her interest in creating sculpture. As with her drawings, the formal language of Dehner’s prints also had an impact on the sculptures she would make. Dehner worked her plates until she decided they were resolved to her liking, often combining engraving with etching and aquatint. In keeping with its experimental charac