This exhibition of etchings by Roi Partridge is loaned from the Collection of Forrest L. Merrill of Berkeley, California. A master printmaker, George Roy Partridge (1888 - 1984), known professionally as Roi Partridge, was an American artist and teacher. He was born in Centralia, Washington. In 1909, the budding artist traveled to New York City for one year of art study. When 44 of his etchings were shown at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, he decided to make California his home. After moving to San Francisco in 1917, he began teaching at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1920 and became the first director of the school's art gallery. His marriage to photographer Imogen Cunningham in 1915 ended in divorce in 1934. They had three sons, including photographer Rondal Partridge. Partridge took a leave of absence from Mills College in 1946, continued etching until 1952, and retired in 1954. His last years were spent in Rossmoor in Walnut Creek, California, where he died in 1984.

His work is held in the collections of the British Museum, the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Grinnell College Museum of Art in Iowa, the Honolulu Museum of Art, Seattle’s Frye Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, the Oakland Museum of California, the Mills College Art Museum, the Monterey Museum of Art, and the San Diego Museum of Art, among others.

Images by Roi Partridge: The Dome, 1919-1920, Etching on paper, 10 1/2" x 8 1/8" | Comme Je Suis, 1911 (Self-Portrait), Engraving on zinc from a pencil study, 12 5/8" x 12 1/4" | and Dancing Water, 1911, Etching on paper, 15 1/2" x 12", All images from the collection of Forrest L. Merrill

Sponsored by Don and Lisa Asperger

Portrait of Roi Partridge taken by his wife, Imogen Cunningham, The Printer, 1930, Silver gelatin print, 10" x 8", From the collection of Forrest L. Merrill