Dietrich Varez - Hawaiian Linocut - 'O I'A - Spear Fishing 1989

Offered here is an original linocut by well known Hawaiian artist Dietrich Varez.  Print on paper, measures ~10 x 15 3/4 inches (image) and overall framed size is ~16 x 22 inches.  Title of this print is 'O I'A and depicts a native Hawaiian spear fishing.  Print is signed in pencil at lower right.

Print is in good condition with light spotting in margin.  Includes original matting and lacquered wood frame.

Dietrich Varez (b. 1939)
Dietrich Varez was born in Berlin, Germany at the beginning of WW2.  After the war, his parents divorced and his mother remarried an American Army Sargeant Manuel Varez, who adopted Dietrich and his brother.  They left Germany and moved to Oahu, Hawaii.  Here, Dietrich attended high school in Honolulu and later graduated from the University of Hawaii, earning a master's degree in English.  He married, started a family and moved to the big island of Hawaii, where they lived near the Kilauea Volcano, and where Dietrich worked at the nearby National Park.  It was here at the National Park Lodge and giftshop that he began selling his art.  Largely self taught, he did carvings of Pele, goddess of the volcano, and later woodcuts and linoleum cut prints.  His subjects were Hawaiian mythology or traditional Hawaiian life.  Varez has published more than 225 woodblock and linoleum block prints.