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Artist: Will Petersen (American, 1928-1994)
American master painter, printer, and cartoonist. He was also a poet, an abstract expressionist, and a Beat Era painter born in Chicago, Illinois. He acted in Japanese B-movies and was the owner of Evanston's Plucked Chicken Press, which he started with his third wife. In 1952, he was drafted by the US Army and sent to Korea, then to Hokkaido, Japan. He learned the art of calligraphy under Master Tahaa and fell in love with ancient Noh plays, as he continued to perform in a troupe while teaching English at Japanese colleges and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. He then moved back to United States to teach drawing at Ohio State University with his family. After divorcing his Japanese wife, he married Cynthia Archer, a printmaking graduate from Wester Virginia University, where he taught as the head of the printmaking department. In his remaining years until his death in 1994, he solely focused on his own works.