Artwork copyright Judith Hahn. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork copyright Judith Hahn. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork copyright Judith Hahn. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ziembo's Woods, 1994

Judith Hahn
American (born 1941, died 1999)

Location: Stratton Elementary, Newport

About the Artwork

Ziembo's Woods is part of artist Judith Hahn's body of Northwest landscape paintings that capture light and shadow using negative space and impressionistic colors. Composed as a diptych of two complementary images in reference to Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken poem, Hahn encourages the viewer to look at the images as a whole. She noted "Visually, the viewer might choose to look at each piece singly – and stay in the woods – or, go down the road. Or, look at the work as a whole, and do both (which is something Robert Frost couldn't do when he 'took the road less traveled by')."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Newport School District.

About the Artist

Painter and printmaker Judith Hahn (1941-1999) was interested in color and light, as seen in nature.
Hahn lived and worked in Woodinville, Western Washington. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1981 at age forty, her artistic process and style evolved to accommodate her physical limitations. Using a wheelchair limited her range of motion and the size of the artworks that she could create. As a result, she started created diptychs, or two-panel artworks, where she could combine two panels to make one larger artwork. She noted, "Because my disability severely limits my mobility, I work (in studio) from photographs we take in the field, although I often use only part of a photographic image, or combine several."
Hahn earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University. During the 1990s, several of her artworks were donated to support the Multiple Sclerosis Society.