Six American Etchings: The New Republic Portfolio 1924

The complete set of six etchings, as issued in 1924, including:

Peggy Bacon (1895–1987), The Promenade Deck, 1920 (Flint 47), 6 x 8 3/8 inches

Ernest Haskell (1876–1925), The Sentinels of North Creek, ca. 1923, 5 x 7 7/8 inches

Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Night Shadows, 1921 (Levin 82) 7 x 8 3/8 inches

John Marin (1870–1953), Downtown the El (Zigrosser 134), 6 7/8 x 8 3/4 inches

Hayes Miller (1876–1952), Play, 1919, 4 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches

John Sloan (1871–1951), Bandit’s Cave, 1920 (Morse 195), 7 x 5 inches

A fine set; each impression in excellent condition with full margins; the cover showing wear.

This set has unusual historical importance: it includes prints exemplifying both traditional approaches to American printmaking, including those by Haskell, Miller, Bacon, and Sloan, as well as examples of important early American Modernist printmaking: Hopper’s Night Shadows and Marin’s Downtown the El.

In 1924 The New Republic offered readers a set of six original signed etchings along with the purchase of a subscription to the magazine. The original offering, in an advertisement in the Saturday Review of Literature (December 6, 1924, p. 350), reads in part:

SIX ETCHINGS

Incomparable as Christmas Gifts

Originals – Not Reproductions: Each Proof Printed by Peter J. Platt, on Handmade Van Gelder Paper – Signed by the Artist, and Offered At Incredibly Small Cost with a Subscription to The New Republic ‘The Ablest of America’s Weeklies’ …“The difficulty with this offer is not to explain, but to refrain…Yet overstatement is almost difficult in face of the facts—the foremost of which (alone simply sufficient to testify to the quality of these etchings) is the names of the six artists themselves.” A subscription form was then appended, offering readers a year’s subscription to the New Republic, with the set, for $8 (or two years for $12; the New Republic alone was $5 a year).

The edition size is not known. In a letter to John Sloan dated January 14, 1925, Robert Hallowell, secretary of the New Republic, writes, referring to set,“These went very well up until the end of last year. Since then, however, the orders have dropped off so considerably that I think there is considerable doubt that we will ever dispose of as many as a thousand sets. Up to date the total is between five and six hundred.” (Morse, 1969, p. 221).

Each of the artists represented in the portfolio was important. At the time of the publication of the set, John Sloan was one of the best-known artists in America, a member of the Ashcan School, a painter represented in great museums throughout the country, and a major printmaker as well. Hayes Miller was known not only as an artist but also as a teacher whose students included the artists of New York’s Fourteenth Street School, including Peggy Bacon, an early Modernist who became a leading book illustrator (and was the youngest artist to produce a piece for this set). Ernest Haskell was already prominent in the United States and in Paris, noted as an etcher and student of Whistler. By 1924 Edward Hopper was beginning to earn recognition as one of America’s great young artistic talents; and John Marin had already been widely recognized for his role in creating some of the first American Modernist paintings and prints after the Armory Show in 1913.

This set represents an important landmark in American printmaking.

Six American Etchings: The New Republic Portfolio 1924

The complete set of six etchings, as issued in 1924, containing Marin’s rare Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying), which appeared in only a few sets before being substituted by Marin’s Downtown the El (Zigrosser 134).

The set includes:

Peggy Bacon (1895–1987), The Promenade Deck, 1920 (Flint 47), 6 x 8 3/8 inches

Ernest Haskell (1876–1925), The Sentinels of North Creek, ca. 1923, 5 x 7 7/8 inches

Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Night Shadows, 1921 (Levin 82) 7 x 8 3/8 inches

John Marin (1870–1953), Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying), 1913 (Zigrosser 112) 10 ¾ x 8 ¾ inches

Hayes Miller (1876–1952), Play, 1919, 4 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches

John Sloan (1871–1951), Bandit’s Cave, 1920 (Morse 195), 7 x 5 inches

An exceeding rare and fine set, surely one of the earliest issued (since it contains the rare Marin print). Hopper’s Night Shadows is extraordinarily black and rich; each of the other impressions including Marin’s Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying) is unusually fine.

This set has unusual historical importance: it includes prints exemplifying both traditional approaches to American printmaking, including those by Haskell, Miller, Bacon, and Sloan, as well as examples of important early American Modernist printmaking: Hopper’s Night Shadows and Marin’s Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying).

In 1924 The New Republic offered readers a set of six original signed etchings along with the purchase of a subscription to the magazine. The original offering, in an advertisement in the Saturday Review of Literature (December 6, 1924, p. 350), reads in part:

SIX ETCHINGS

Incomparable as Christmas Gifts

Originals – Not Reproductions: Each Proof Printed by Peter J. Platt, on Handmade Van Gelder Paper – Signed by the Artist, and Offered At Incredibly Small Cost with a Subscription to The New Republic ‘The Ablest of America’s Weeklies’ …“The difficulty with this offer is not to explain, but to refrain…Yet overstatement is almost difficult in face of the facts—the foremost of which (alone simply sufficient to testify to the quality of these etchings) is the names of the six artists themselves.” A subscription form was then appended, offering readers a year’s subscription to the New Republic, with the set, for $8 (or two years for $12; the New Republic alone was $5 a year).

The edition size is not known. In a letter to John Sloan dated January 14, 1925, Robert Hallowell, secretary of the New Republic, writes, referring to set,“These went very well up until the end of last year. Since then, however, the orders have dropped off so considerably that I think there is considerable doubt that we will ever dispose of as many as a thousand sets. Up to date the total is between five and six hundred.” (Morse, 1969, p. 221).

Marin’s Brooklyn Bridge print was planned for inclusion in the set, but after a few were printed, it was replaced by Marin’s Downtown the El. (The original cover specified the Brooklyn Bridge, but in subsequent covers this was crossed out in ink and replaced by the words “Downtown Manhattan.”)  Zigrosser, Marin’s cataloguer, suggested that perhaps the plate had broken. This is unlikely since the printer, Peter Platt (1859–1934), was America’s most distinguished artists’ printer of the period, worked alone, and it was unlikely that he would have broken a copperplate. A more likely explanation is that Downtown the El is about the same size as the other prints in the set, whereas the Brooklyn Bridge print is much larger; a plate of the same size would facilitate the printing of a large issue. Each of the plates was purchased by the New Republic, and the paper’s records for 1924–5, and probably also the plates, have been lost or destroyed.

Today, complete sets of the New Republic are rare, and those containing Marin’s Brooklyn Bridge are rarer still – indeed, they are virtually unknown to the market. Zigrosser had not encountered a set, and in his catalogue raisonne of Marin prints he guessed – incorrectly – which Marin print was initially included in it. Years later, in a correction (published in The Print Collector’s Newsletter, 1970, Vol. 1, No. 4), he noted that he had located only one institution which owned a complete set New Republic set (The New York Public Library; today the impression cannot be located), and that set included Downtown the El, not the Brooklyn Bridge. We have been unable to locate any museum or institution with a complete set (with either Marin!).

Each of the artists represented in the portfolio was important. At the time of the publication of the set, John Sloan was one of the best-known artists in America, a member of the Ashcan School, a painter represented in great museums throughout the country, and a major printmaker as well. Hayes Miller was known not only as an artist but also as a teacher whose students included the artists of New York’s Fourteenth Street School, including Peggy Bacon, an early Modernist who became a leading book illustrator (and was the youngest artist to produce a piece for this set). Ernest Haskell was already prominent in the United States and in Paris, noted as an etcher and student of Whistler. By 1924 Edward Hopper was beginning to earn recognition as one of America’s great young artistic talents; and John Marin had already been widely recognized for his role in creating some of the first American Modernist paintings and prints after the Armory Show in 1913.

This set, a great rarity in near-pristine condition and containing the original group of etchings, represents an important landmark in American printmaking.

Peggy Bacon (1895-1987), Custard (also known as Lunch No. 4 – Custard), lithograph, signed in pencil lower right and titled (Custard for Lunch?). Reference: Flint 77, only state. In pristine condition, printed on a cream wove paper, the full sheet with deckle edges, 11 1/2 x 15 7/8, the sheet 13 3/4 x 18.

A fine fresh and rich impression.

Custard is very clean, striking, and straightforward. But one senses that in the end Bacon succumbed to the ever-present temptation, at this stage in her career, of injecting some humor in each composition, so we have a tiny anthropomorphic caterpillar on a leaf at the right, about to serve as our hero’s lunch.

Detail

]]> http://harrisschrank.com/custard.htm/feed 0 http://harrisschrank.com/the-bridge-party.htm http://harrisschrank.com/the-bridge-party.htm#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:29:59 +0000 Harris Schrank http://harrisschrank.com/?p=376 Peggy Bacon drypoint The Bridge Party, signed, dated (Nov. 1918) and titled (Bridge) in pencil by the artist. Flint 3. In generally ok but rough condition as befits an early working proof  pulled by Bacon herself, with diagonal folds upper and lower right, with margins (1/2 inch top and sides, 1 inch bottom, pencil mark right margin.  4 1/8 x 5 inches, archival mounting. A very fine impression of this rarity (we’ve seen only one other impression in 30 years). In this early impression, the burr from the drypoint work creates a brilliant satiny black. Bacon (1895-1987) was influenced by the [...]]]>

Peggy Bacon drypoint The Bridge Party, signed, dated (Nov. 1918) and titled (Bridge) in pencil by the artist. Flint 3. In generally ok but rough condition as befits an early working proof  pulled by Bacon herself, with diagonal folds upper and lower right, with margins (1/2 inch top and sides, 1 inch bottom, pencil mark right margin.  4 1/8 x 5 inches, archival mounting.

A very fine impression of this rarity (we’ve seen only one other impression in 30 years). In this early impression, the burr from the drypoint work creates a brilliant satiny black.

Bacon (1895-1987) was influenced by the new modernist/cubist movements in art in her earliest prints; The Bridge Party is one of her finest efforts working in this idiom.

]]> http://harrisschrank.com/the-bridge-party.htm/feed 0 http://harrisschrank.com/heywood-broun.htm http://harrisschrank.com/heywood-broun.htm#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:23:43 +0000 Harris Schrank http://harrisschrank.com/?p=1165 Peggy Bacon (1895-1987), Heywood Broun, lithograph, 1930, signed lower right and titled lower left margin. Reference: Flint 92. In excellent condition (no trace of ever having been matted or framed), the full sheet with deckle edges, on a heavy cream wove paper watermarked BKF RIVES FRANCE. 11 x 15 3/8, the sheet 14 7/8 x 19 inches, archival mounting (unattached mylar hinging between acid free board, glassine cover). A fine fresh impression, in pristine condition. By the late 1930 Peggy Bacon, now in her mid-thirties, was one of America’s most loved and honored printmakers. She had many solo shows, and [...]]]>

Peggy Bacon (1895-1987), Heywood Broun, lithograph, 1930, signed lower right and titled lower left margin. Reference: Flint 92. In excellent condition (no trace of ever having been matted or framed), the full sheet with deckle edges, on a heavy cream wove paper watermarked BKF RIVES FRANCE. 11 x 15 3/8, the sheet 14 7/8 x 19 inches, archival mounting (unattached mylar hinging between acid free board, glassine cover).

A fine fresh impression, in pristine condition.

By the late 1930 Peggy Bacon, now in her mid-thirties, was one of America’s most loved and honored printmakers. She had many solo shows, and was a regular participant in the American Printmakers annual exhibition at the Downtown Gallery.

Bacon began making lithographs in 1928, and Heywood Broun is one of earliest, and most successful portraits in the medium. It is regularly featured in portrait shows at the Library of Congress, and is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Art, etc.

Heywood Broun was a famous crusading journalist and reformer of the 1920′s and 30′s. He was famed for his support of civil rights, free speech, ordinary people, and the underdog. Some of his quotes: “When a man has a conviction, great or small, about eggs or eternity, he must wear it always in plain sight, pulled down tight upon his forehead; I see no wisdom in saving up punches for a rainy day.” Another: “Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anybody else.” In his honor the Newspaper Guild gives an annual Heywood Broun award.

Peggy Bacon (1895-1987), Virtuoso, 1933, signed and titled in pencil and inscribed: “For Pat and Dick.” Reference: Flint 121. In good condition, on cream wove paper with a deckle edge all around and so with full margins, with drying holes all around (indicating that this was printed by Bacon’s favorite master printer Peter Platt). 5 x 4, the sheet 12 5/8 x 9 3/4 inches, matted.

A fine rich impression, with much drypoint burr.

A rarely encountered print, we have not located an impression of Viruoso in the extensive collections of Bacon’s work in the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, or the Achenbach Collection in San Francisco.

The inscription “For Pat and Dick” was made after the print was titled and signed; the reference may be to the Nixons, but we tend to doubt it.

Peggy Bacon was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut. She studied at the Art Students League with John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and George Bellows. Bacon is known to many audiences, for she created paintings and prints, wrote poetry and novels, and illustrated over 60 children’s books. Print lovers know her best for her splendid drypoint compositions, including early modernist works, and her satirical portrayals of both rural and New York life.