Pictured: Lawyer, a retired art teacher, is pictured with the printmaking press he built in 1976 for Augustana Professor Emeritus of Art Carl Grupp.
Two years ago, Fred Lawyer ‘76 completed an 18-hour drive to Augustana’s campus. The purpose was to make a donation to the art department. Not just any donation though — it was in the form of a several hundred-pound stone.
The stone that he drove cross country to donate is used for printmaking, also known as lithography, and is a limited, irreplaceable resource. Printmaking dates back to the late 1700s, and is the process of printing from a flat, special limestone that is treated to repel ink except where it is required for printing.
“Over the years, the stones become thinner and thinner, but each stone, with proper handling, has the potential to create thousands of images in its lifetime,” said Professor of Art Dr. Lindsay Twa.
Lawyer originally purchased the stone in the late-’70s from Graphic Chemical and Ink, a supplier of lithography materials, while studying for his Master of Fine Arts at Kansas State University. He then cut the stone down with a circular saw to the size it is today — about 24-by-32 inches. The stone traveled with him from Kansas to the University of South Alabama, where he landed a teaching job. However, Lawyer’s personal and the university’s presses were both too small to fit the newly acquired stone. For years, it sat in a crate until he brought the stone along on a trip to visit the late Carl Grupp.
Grupp, Augustana professor emeritus of art, was the founder of AU’s printmaking department and the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery. He was also Lawyer's professor and friend, as well as one of his most impactful artistic influences.
“I could've taken it to the University of South Dakota or even Kansas State, my other alma maters, but I really thought it would get the best use and care at Augustana,” Lawyer said. “Plus, I very much have a soft spot for my whole Augustana experience and my time with Carl.
“The world is truly an emptier place without him. You just can't replace people like Carl.”
Lawyer’s donation, Twa said, is priceless to Augustana’s printmaking studio.
“This stone will enable generations of student artists to create unique images of a scale that most others would only get to achieve as professional and advanced artists,” Twa said. “Augustana has long had a strong tradition in printmaking, and Fred is now paying it forward to our future students.”
From the U.S. Navy to Augustana
Lawyer’s path to Augustana was not a straightforward one. One of seven children born to World War II veterans, Lawyer was born in an Army hospital and spent his childhood in Taiwan, Germany and California, before his family settled in Sioux Falls. In 1969, a week after he received his high school diploma, Lawyer was drafted. Three years after his high school graduation and serving honorably in the Navy, Lawyer started school at Sioux Falls College, now the University of Sioux Falls, but transferred to Augustana his sophomore year. Here, he met Grupp, and his affinity for printmaking developed.
“Printmaking is what they call ‘super drawing,’” Lawyer said. “You can do things that are impossible to do with just drawing, and I'm into mechanical stuff, so it became my forte. Of course, once I got into it, I had to have all the equipment. So, I got my own roller, and I built my own. My first press that I built, I used the metal frame from a bunk bed that I slept in when I was a kid.”
The summer after Lawyer graduated from Augustana, he also built a press for Grupp, who kept it until Lawyer drove his lithography stone to AU. Grupp expressed concern that, eventually, the press would be hauled off as scrap metal. So, just a few months after his first trip, Lawyer made the 18-hour drive to Sioux Falls once again to retrieve the press he had built for Grupp decades earlier.
“After just one year, I had to replace the tires on my truck because they had cord separation from transporting all that weight — all that speed and distance,” Lawyer laughed.
Lawyer, who taught high school art in Alabama, said that he applied many things he learned from Grupp to his own teaching.
“He was really not that much older than me — more like an older brother — but he definitely was a father figure in my art world,” said Lawyer. “He taught me how to draw, and I can't tell you how many great meals I had at Carl's table with him and his family when I was building his press, and even before.”
Lawyer, who is now retired and resides in Mobile, Alabama, still practices printmaking, but not as much as he used to. The stone Lawyer donated can be found in Augustana’s Center for Visual Arts, where printmaking students will use it to create art for years to come.
“When I donated the stone, it was gratis,” Lawyer said. “I was just happy to do it.”