For Halprin, a hike amongst the redwood trees was incomplete without a notebook in hand. The Halprin Personal Drawing Collection includes a number of nature studies created on family hikes in the High Sierras and other locations near his California home and Sea Ranch. The Topographic study, from the collection of SFMoMA, is both an academic sketch of the Earth’s surface and a visually mesmerizing work of art, in which lines break away from the accuracy of scientific illustration and reveal the expressive process and meditative state of its creation.
Redwood Path, 1956
Pen and ink on paper
16 x 12 in.
Rock Study, 1984
Watercolor and pen on paper
14 x 20 in.
Rock Study, 1956
Watercolor and pen on paper
9 x 12 in.
Topographic Study, 1950
Pen on paper
12 1/2 x 16 in.
From the collection of SFMoMA
Yosemite Study, 1970
Photocopy, ink, and watercolor on paper
14 x 11 in.
San Francisco Bay Estuary, 1946
Ink on paper
6 7/8 x 9 1/2 in.
Ceanothus, 1959
Pen and watercolor on paper
14 x 10 1/2 in.
Private Collection
View of the Stewarts Point Forest Fire from the Halprin Residence, 1980
Watercolor and pen on paper
18 x 24 in.
Private Collection
Dance Deck, Kentfield, 1985
Pastel and pen on paper
12 x 9 in.
Fire Ring, Halprin Home, Sea Ranch, 1990
Watercolor and pastel on paper
14 x 17 in.
Kentfield Landscape, 1985
Watercolor and pen on paper
11 x 15 in.
San Joaquin Mountain, August, 1956
Watercolor on pen and paper
9 x 11 1/2 in.
Private Collection
Untitled, 2008
Ink and watercolor on paper
20 x 14 in.