Born in Buffalo, New York, Asa Cheffetz studied at the School Of The Museum Of Fine Arts in Boston under Philip Leslie Hale and at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He also studied with Ivan Gregorevitch and William Auerbach-Levy. Settling in Springfield, Massachusetts where his family operated a movie theater, Cheffetz applied his training and talent to the mastery of wood engraving, a medium for which he is now best known in which he was largely self-taught.
Cheffetz was among the group of twentieth-century American printmakers who remained dedicated to realism. These artists observed their subjects carefully and captured them through precise details and faithful effects of light and shadow. The majority of his work is devoted to depictions of the rural New England landscape. Looking past the conventionality of his subject matter, his technique is so skillful that he achieves effects of light, shadow, and texture in his wood engravings that a lithographer might envy. Cheffetz was also a perfectionist; he personally printed his engravings with meticulous attention to detail and tonal gradation.
