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Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections LibrarySharon Defibaugh
The gift agreement for the addition clearly states that the woodblocks are NEVER to be used again. The copperplates are reusable. However, Angelika S. Powell has held on to the "artistic reproduction of these donated originals." The United States rights were copyrighted by Powell on March 23, 2015.
This collection is open for research use.
Werner K. Sensbach Graphic Art Collection, 1992-2003, MSS 15884, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Virginia.
The collection was purchased by the University of Virginia Special Collections Library on October 27, 2014-2015.
The addition to the collection was given to the University of Virginia Special Collections Library on November 1, 2020 by Angelika S. Powell, the wife of Werner S. Sensbach.
Werner K. Sensbach (1923-2015), an architect and campus planner at the University of Virginia and several branches, 1965-1991, was born in Mannheim, Germany, to Gustav and Margarethe Sensbach. Werner was educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, Germany and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He worked in architectural offices in Germany, Switzerland and New York State. During World War II, Werner was severly wounded in 1944 at the Eastern Front in the Ukraine. In 1954, he immigrated to the United States and became a city planner in Columbia, South Carolina, and Roanoake, Virginia. In 1953, he was married to Gladys Frederiksen (died 2014) and they had two sons. He then married Angelika S. Powell.
After retirement, his interest turned to art, including watercolor field sketches and al fresco oil paintings of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Piedmont, and etchings, lithographs, and woodcut prints of the University of Virginia buildings.
The collection includes both colored and black-and-white prints of etchings, woodcuts, and linocuts by Werner K. Sensbach, depicting various University of Virginia buildings and a couple of landscapes. Also includes twelve preliminary sketches done by Sensbach of scenes from the University of Virginia and one for St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
The addition to the Werner K. Sensbach papers (MSS 15884) contains original printing blocks, sketches, prints, and exhibition information. Werner Sensbach (1923-2015) was an artist, architect, urban designer, and campus planner. He served as the Virginia Campus Architect and was a professor in the Urban Planning School from 1965 to1991. After his retirement, he became a citizen scholar at the UVA Studio Art Department where he created his works.
The bulk of the addition to the collection are fifty-one original copper plates, zinc plates, linoleum, and woodblocks, primarily of buildings and scenes at the University of Virginia. Also included are preliminary sketches and designs, three copies of his series of prints titled "University of Virginia: Four Views," and exhibition information from shows held between 2000 to 2018.
Woodblocks with University of Virginia scenes and buildings include: the Chapel, East Lawn, Madison Hall viewed from the Rotunda, Rotunda Front Steps, Serpentine Wall, West Lawn, West Lawn and Rotunda, and the Winged Victory with the Rotunda (McConnell statue). The other two woodblocks include Monticello and the Frontier Village near Staunton, Virginia.
Almost all of the copper plates are of scenes or buildings at the University of Virginia. These include: several of the Bayly Art Museum, Brooks Hall with Washington Hall in the background, several views of the Chapel, Cocke Hall and the Amphitheater, the "Cracker Box" on the East Range, Fayerweather Hall with a scene from the Studio Art Department and with a horse and cart in the foreground, the Lawn featuring a "music group" in the foreground, views of the Rotunda and the East Lawn, the Rotunda with Madison Hall in the foreground, the Rotunda as viewed from the West Range, the Senff Gate, the South Lawn and the statue of Homer, and the University Hall (demolished in 2019). One of the copper plates features St. Paul's Church on the Corner.
The zinc plates all feature scenes and buildings at the University of Virginia. These include: the Clemons Underground Library, the East Lawn, four views of Fayerweather Hall with scenes from both the Printing Studio and Studio Art, Lambeth Columns and the School of Architecture, two of the Rotunda and the West Range with one view at night, the Rotunda and the East Lawn, the Rotunda and Alderman Library with the McConnell statue of "Winged Victory," the Rotunda crosswalk with the architect on the way to his office, the University Garden I, University Garden Gates, and the West Range.