University Press returns to publishing
with Rollin Pickford watercolor collection

Pickford's "Canal Fog," which depicts the scene at First and Nees in 1974, is one of 150 plates in the latest publication of The Press.

by Tom Uribes

A collection of watercolors featuring local landscapes of artist Rollin Pickford will be published in early September by the University Press at Fresno State.

The book, California Light: The Watercolors of Rollin Pickford, marks the return debut of The Press, which was founded in the School of Arts and Humanities in 1980 but has not published since 1992 due to a lack of funding.

Dr. Luis Costa, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities who serves as The Press's publisher and director, said the independent publishing house was resurrected this summer and is entirely self-supporting.

"With budget cuts, we lost the position of director of The Press, and it has not been possible to do another project until this one came along," Costa said. "It was done because the main part of the work came during the summer."

The last book published by The Press was Surviving the Storms, by Helen Dimitriew, former professor of Russian at Fresno State.

Costa said The Press is looking at a number of manuscripts for possible publication, including a history of the Armenians in Fresno.

But the Pickford book "highlights the work of one of the Valley's most prolific and beloved artists," Costa said.

Rollin Pickford is painter laureate of the California's San Joaquin Valley, which he has been painting since the early '40s. His watercolors of the region have been exhibited internationally, winning more than 300 awards. They are represented in more than 1,700 public and private art collections. Pickford's legacy comprises some 13,000 watercolors and thousands of works in other media.

"Since 1939, when he began interpreting the Valley in watercolor, much of the farmland surrounding his native Fresno has been consumed by strip malls and housing tracts," said Joel Pickford, the artist's son. "Many of his paintings document an agrarian landscape that no longer exists."

The selection of the watercolors for the book was made by the younger Pickford, a photographer, writer and filmmaker with many awards, film festival screenings and museum and gallery exhibitions to his credit.

He authored three essays in the book detailing the background of his father and the painters of the San Joaquin, and giving a chronology of the works and a description of the preparation of the book.

The book also includes essays by Mark Arax, a Los Angeles Times reporter and Fresno State alumnus. The essays focus on a conversation with the artist about the San Joaquin Valley, and Arax's own recollections of the San Joaquin Valley.

Costa said the photographs and the plates were all done digitally by computer technology.

"We have been able to adjust every individual color in a state-of-the-art Hexachrome printer just acquired by Larry Early for Dumont Printing, so that the reproductions are extremely faithful to the originals," said Costa. "The photographs were done in the studio of Duncan Ceramics also using newly acquired digital equipment."

A retrospective of Pickford watercolors will open at the Fresno Art Museum Sept. 8.