Arts and Crafts Block Prints by William S. Rice Boxed Notecards

William Seltzer Rice (1873–1963) was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Northern California in 1900, when the region’s Arts & Crafts movement was flowering. A talented and prolific watercolorist, Rice taught at various schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland—a center for the movement. He became devoted to block printing because compared with original watercolors, prints better suited the Arts & Crafts ethos of making artwork available to a wide audience at modest cost. Unlike many printmakers, Rice designed, carved, and printed the blocks all himself. The landscapes of Northern California—from the Sierra Nevada to the Pacific—proved excellent raw materials for his creativity, and his prints today can be found in public and private collections worldwide.