Glen Alps

Glen Alps
Born	June 20, 1914 Loveland, Colorado
Died	November 3, 1996 Seattle, Washington
Nationality	U.S. citizen
Other names	Glen Earl Alps, Glen E. Alps
Occupation	Artist, educator
Known for	Developing the collagraph

Glen Alps was a printmaker and educator who is credited with having developed the collagraph. A collagraph is a print whose plate is a board or other substrate onto which textured materials are glued. The plate may be inked for printing in either the intaglio or the relief manner and then printed onto paper. Although the inventor of the process is not known, Alps made collagraphy his primary art form and coined the word "collagraph" in 1956. He disseminated the techniques he developed for making collagraphs during his long career as both an artist and a teacher.

Alps was born in 1914 on a farm near Loveland, Colorado. He attended Colorado State College of Education (today University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley, Colorado, where he received the Bachelor of Arts in 1940. After graduation he worked as an art instructor in the Greeley County school system until 1942, when he took a job in the publishing department of Culver Aircraft Factory in Wichita. In 1945 he returned to school at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was awarded the Master of Fine Arts in 1947. During that summer Alps studied with printmaker Mauricio Lasansky (b. 1914) at the University of Iowa.

Alps's early work in printmaking was in keeping with the realism of American Regionalists Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, but by the end of 1947 his work had turned toward abstraction and vivid color, judiciously used. The excitement of printmaking for Alps was in the creative process. He preferred small editions to large ones, and was prolific in his production. At this time he worked in lithography, screenprinting and etching. A favorite abstract motif was the circle in a square which, according to arts reviewer John Voorhees, became a type of "trademark" for the artist that he often used in his work.

Glen Alps began teaching in the Art Department of the University of Washington while he was still a graduate student there. In 1947 the chairman of the department, Walter F. Jacobs, invited Alps to teach classes in watercolor and design as an acting associate of the school. He soon began teaching printmaking, as well. After graduation Alps's teaching career at the University of Washington continued. He received tenure in 1954 and became a full professor in 1962. He was named Professor Emeritus upon his retirement from teaching in 1984.

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