Sylvia Solochek Walters

[16][26][27] She served as director of the USML Gallery for ten years, developing public panel discussions and exhibitions such as "American Women Printmakers" (1975), which included work by Louise Nevelson, Judy Chicago, Pat Steir and herself.

[27][16][1] Walters's mature style is noted for its subtle color and texture, abundant use of patterning to create pictorial interest, and drawing that has been compared to Philip Pearlstein and ranges from vigorous to delicate.

[39] St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Mary King described the "vertically curling and knotting" central form of the woodcut Fragment I as an "agitated tower of textures and line shapes" that was "only incidentally a figure.

"[40] Depicted in thorny, ropy lines that thickened into shapes, divided or slid into one another like branches or flowing liquid, they drew comparisons to the work of Leonard Baskin.

[23][40] In a review of her 1964 solo exhibition, Milwaukee Journal critic Donald Key suggested her bold, spiraling and stretched linear patterns evoked rising musical passages or the vibration of string tones (e.g., Small Musician After Degas).

[41][40][11][42] Walters complemented her early printmaking with brightly colored, more personal pastel drawings and oil paintings of figures, still lifes and scenes such as Umbrellascape, a nearly abstract, rhythmic composition of overlapping beach umbrellas and furniture.

[21][43] In a 1971 solo show, she exhibited such prints (e.g., Bazaar I, Shield I, Byzantine Becky), which paired forthright portraits and symbolic motifs suggesting subconscious processes with subtle surfaces, blazing color, and diverse drawn and stamped patterns.

[1] Her work also became more complex in composition and space, using pattern, texture, and devices such as printed or collaged frames within the picture plane (e.g., Seven Lemons, 1976) to create contrasts between flatness and depth, and realism and imagination.

[6][47][48] In subject matter, she turned from the metaphorical to more neutrally handled imagery drawn from her immediate environment—initially domestic still lifes and scenes, and later, portraits of her husband, self, friends and colleagues—that gradually revealed minute details and motifs of a personal nature.

[50][51] It often incorporates multiple images and motifs from nature, culture, family albums and art historical sources, such as Chinese pottery (e.g., La Grande Cascade, 1983) or Japanese prints.

[12][13][14][3][57] She has received awards from the Southern Graphics Council International (Tradition in Printmaking, 2014),[57] Northern California Print Competition (1986, Best of Show),[58][15] Colorprint USA and Vermillion '79 (both 1979),[16][1] and St. Louis Artists' Guild (1969, 1971, 1975), among others.