Richard V. "Dick" Correll (1904-1990), described as "one of the leading masters of printmaking in the West", was best known for his powerful black and white linoleum cuts, etchings, and woodblock prints. For most of his life he earned a living as a commercial artist in the book publishing and advertising fields while producing a large body of fine art in his own time. His themes ranged from landscapes, animals and agricultural scenes, harbors and ships, and music and dance to those which reflected his lifelong concern with political and social issues.

Born in Missouri 1904, Richard Correll spent most of his life in the Washington, Oregon, and California. He spent his early years in small farms or towns in Oregon and California. Correll's artistic skills were largely self taught: "I combed the library of every place we moved to for reproductions and critical articles on artwork or artists." He also became sensitized to the environment early on through working in his family's small garden plots and farms and caring for the occasional family cow, horse or flock of chickens.

In the later 1920s the family had moved to Los Angeles, where Correll drafted the houses his family would build. After the building boom collapsed with the Depression, Correll opened a couple of sign shops and did sign painting and calligraphy. He took a few art classes at what was then Chouinard Art Institute, but never attended as a matriculated student. He continued to sketch and draw on his own. Correll's political thinking deepened with the Depression and seeing flocks of people uprooted by the Dust Bowl stream into California.

Correll specialized in printmaking, primarily wood and linoleum block prints, but produced etchings and lithographs as well. In addition, he produced drawings, gouache paintings and two murals. Especially notable from Correll's WPA period is a suite of prints depicting the legendary American folk hero, Paul Bunyan.

During the Seattle years, Correll was a founding member of the Washington Artists' Union. He married his wife Alice in 1938. He had several solo shows and exhibited widely in national juried group shows (Print Club of Philadelphia, the California Etcher's Society, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Print Annual.) In 1939 his work was exhibited at the New York World's Fair. Many of the works from the WPA period are today in the collections of museums, universities, and public buildings and continue to be shown and circulated. His murals of Paul Bunyan remain in a high school in Bremerton, Washington.

In 1941 Correll and his wife moved to New York City. Correll worked for 11 years in the commercial art field. While commercial work paid decently, Correll always thought it a 'sorry thing' to use one's artistic abilities to sell products.

As America entered World War II, Correll, at 36, was too old for the draft. He joined the Civilian Defense Corps as an Air Raid Warden in the Greenwich Village area. He also did artwork for Civil Defense, producing dozens of pro bono flyers, banners, signs and posters for various causes. Daughter Leslie was born in 1944.

After joining the Artists League of America (ALA), an organization of progressive artists and sculptors "devoted to social, cultural, and economic interest of artists", Correll served as Publication Chair of the ALA News from 1943 on, and by 1946 was Editor. Membership in those years included Rockwell Kent, Lynd Ward, Jacob Lawrence and Moses Soyer. He exhibited regularly with ALA, and his linocut, "Air Raid Wardens" was included in the "Artists for Victory" travelling exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and 26 other venues in the USA and Canada.

In 1952 Correll and his family moved back to the West Coast, this time to San Francisco. There, Correll joined the newly-formed Graphic Arts Workshop and Printmaker's Gallery of San Francisco, a dynamic group of progressive artist-activists who shared studio and exhibition space as well as the desire to serve the ideals of peace and social justice through their artwork. Through his lifelong membership in the Workshop he and met and worked with many other noted San Francisco artists and muralists of his generation such as Emmy Lou Packard, Irving Fromer, Victor Arnautoff, William Wolff, Louise Gilbert, Pele de Lappe and Stanley Koppel. In 1954 he realized a lifelong dream of visiting México, the famous Taller de Gráfica Popular and the great works of Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros that had so influenced him and his generation.

In 1969 Correll retired from the commercial art field and was able to work full time at his fine art. The family moved to Oakland in 1972. Upon the occasion of his 80th birthday he was honored with a major retrospective exhibition and community celebration. He died in 1990 at the age of 85. A monograph on his work (Richard V. Correll: Prints and Drawings) was published in 2005, to recognize the centenary of his birth.

Sources: Correll Studios. "About Richard V. Correll and His Work" www.richardvcorrell.com. Retrieved November 28, 2012 from http://www.richardvcorrell.com/about/ Correll, Richard V., DeWitt Cheng, Lincoln Cushing, and Leslie Correll. 2005. Richard V. Correll: prints and drawings. Oakland, Calif: Correll Studios. Grijalva, Brian. "Richard Correll and the Woodcut Graphics of the Voice of Action," Communism in Washington State History and Memory Project Retrieved November 28, 2012 from http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/correll.shtml.