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.

John Sloan (1871-1951), Arch Conspirators, etching, 1917. Morse 183, second state (of 2). Edition 100 (and in this rare instance, that’s how many impressions of the edition were printed). Signed, titled and annotated 100 proofs in pencil. [Signed and dated in the plate, lower left]. In excellent condition. Image size 4 1/4 x 5 7/8 inches (108 x 149 mm); sheet size 8 1/8 x 10 7/8 inches (206 x 276 mm).

A fine, rich impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 5/8 to 2 5/8 inches); Printed by Ernest Roth.

“A mid-winter party on the roof of Washington Square Arch. Among those present: Marcel Duchamp, Charles Ellis (actor), John Sloan, and Gertrude Drick (poet), instigator of the affair. A document was drawn up to establish the secession of Greenwich Village from the United States…. The door of the Arch stairway has since been kept locked.” Another article about the incident, “Arch Conspirators” by Margaret Christie (New York Tribune, Dec. 30, 1923), tells essentially the same story. It quotes Sloan at length in the author’s words and reproduces the 1st state of this etching. –Morse, p. 209

$3000

]]> http://harrisschrank.com/arch-conspirators.htm/feed 0 http://harrisschrank.com/fashions-of-the-past.htm http://harrisschrank.com/fashions-of-the-past.htm#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:11:48 +0000 Harris Schrank http://harrisschrank.com/?p=3956 John Sloan (American 1871 – 1954), Fashions of the Past, etching and aquatint, 1926, signed and titled by the artist in pencil (Morse 224 IV/IV), also signed by the printer. From the edition of 100 (of which75 were printed, according to Morse). Annotated: Peter Platt imp (Platt was an early, and one of Sloan’s favorite, printer). In very good condition, with wide margins, with the tack holes at outer margins for drying, as usual for impressions printed by Peter Platt; on wove paper, conservation matted. 7 7/8 x 9 3/4 inches, the sheet 12 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches. A fine [...]]]>

John Sloan (American 1871 – 1954), Fashions of the Past, etching and aquatint, 1926, signed and titled by the artist in pencil (Morse 224 IV/IV), also signed by the printer. From the edition of 100 (of which75 were printed, according to Morse). Annotated: Peter Platt imp (Platt was an early, and one of Sloan’s favorite, printer). In very good condition, with wide margins, with the tack holes at outer margins for drying, as usual for impressions printed by Peter Platt; on wove paper, conservation matted. 7 7/8 x 9 3/4 inches, the sheet 12 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches.

A fine fresh impression of this evocative image.

The Fashions of the Past are evident both in the store window, and on the passing crowd. Sloan’s comment on this print: ”A well-arranged shop window and the contrasting costumes of the passers-by, whose dress of the time will in turn become costumes of the past.” On one proof Sloan wrote the name of the store: Lord and Taylor.

$2100

John Sloan (1871-1954), The Green Hour (or Angna Enters in “The Green Hour”), etching, 1930, signed in pencil lower right, inscribed “100 proofs” lower left [with the signature and date lower right, title lower left in the plate]. Reference: Morse 245, second state (of 2), of 90 printed. In very good condition, the full sheet with deckle edges, 5 x 4, the sheet 12 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches. Printed on a cream wove paper by Peter Platt, with his characteristic drying holes around the edges.

A superb impression.

Peter Platt was one of Sloan’s favorite printers. He printed 25 impressions of The Green Hour.

Angna Enters (1897-1989) was a mime, dancer, artist, dramatist, composer and theatrical designer, and a Sloan colleague and possibly former student, since she studied at the Art Students League in New York after 1919 (Sloan taught there from about 1914 to 1924). He wrote: “I have made several etchings  produced under the inspiration of the creative genius of Angna Enters. This one has given me great satisfaction.”

$1400

Detail

John Sloan (1871-1954),  Half Nude on Elbow, 1931, signed in pencil lower right, titled lower middle, annotated “100 proofs” lower left. Reference: Morse 250, sixth state (of 6). From the edition of 75 printed. Printed by Peter Platt, with his characteristic drying tack holes at the bottom and left of the sheet, with wide margins,  printed on a cream wove paper, 3 x 5, the sheet 9 x 11 1/2 inches.

A fine impression.

Sloan routinely wrote “100 proofs” on many of his prints, regardless of the actual number of impressions printed. In this case a total of 75 impressions were printed in the definitive state, 25 by his favored printer Peter Platt and 50 by Ernest Roth.

At this stage of his career Sloan had seen the Rembrandts and other old master paintings now-installed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and was experimenting with new approaches to painting, including the use of a cross-hatching technique to achieve varying tonalities. His etchings of nudes, such as Nude with Furniture, were done as part of this evolving aesthetic, at a time when Sloan was perhaps more focused on being a fine artist than portraying local landmarks (though of course these nudes were landmarks of a sort).

In this context, Sloan’s later (1945) comment on this print is of interest: “Here there is an attempt at linework of too much delicacy which interferes with the sense of realization.” Curiously, the intricate linework in Half Nude is reminiscent of many of Rembrandt’s etchings.

$750

Detail

John Sloan (1871-1954), Nude with Furniture, etching, 1931, signed in pencil lower right, titled lower middle, annotated “100 proofs” lower left. Reference: Morse 252, third state (of 3). From the edition of only 45 printed. Printed by Peter Platt, with his characteristic drying tack holes all around, in very good condition, the full sheet with deckle edges; printed on a cream wove paper with the Van Gelder Zonen Holland and the JP in a square watermark, 5 x 4, the sheet 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches.

A fine impression.

Sloan routinely wrote “100 proofs” on many of his prints, regardless of the actual number of impressions printed. In this case only a total of 45 impressions were printed in the definitive state, 25 by his favored printer Peter Platt and 20 by Ernest Roth.

Sloan wrote of this print: “This etching seems to catch the ‘ethereal’ quality of flesh amid furniture and draperies, although I must admit I had no such purpose in mind.” His wife Helen Sloan Farr wrote: “The furniture in the back ground was ‘invented.’ The Windsor chair was made by one of his cabinetmaker Sloan ancestors.”

At this stage of his career Sloan had seen the Rembrandts and other old master paintings now-installed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and was experimenting with new approaches to painting, including the use of a cross-hatching technique to achieve varying tonalities. His etchings of nudes, such as Nude with Furniture, were done as part of this evolving aesthetic, at a time when Sloan was perhaps more focused on being a fine artist than portraying local landmarks (though of course these nudes were landmarks of a sort).

$750

Detail

John Sloan (1871-1951), Fourteenth Street, The Wigwam (also known as Tammany Hall), etching, 1928, signed, titled, and inscribed 100 proofs; also signed by printer Peter Platt. Reference: Morse 235, seventh state (of 7). From the edition of 100, 110 were printed. In excellent condition, the full sheet with the drying holes all around as characteristic of Peter Platt impressions, paper loss upper left corner margin corner, with full margins, on a wove paper, 9 3/4 x 7, the sheet 19 x 12 3/4 inches, archival window mat.

ex Collection: Furniture Brands, Saint Louis, Missouri; Christie’s New York, February, 2008

A fine clear impression.

Peter Platt was a favorite Sloan printer.

Tammany Hall was the notorious headquarters of the New York City political machine. Sloan writes: “Old Tammany Hall, the headquarters of the bosses of New York City….lurked, menacing, in dingy red brick, facing the tawdry amusements of East Fourteenth Street.”

Sloan’s painting of Tammany Hall in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, done for the Federal Art Project, was copied directly from this etching.

$3325

John Sloan (1871-1954), Nude on the Floor, etching and engraving, 1931, signed, titled and annotated “100 proofs” [also signed in the plate]. Reference: Morse 257, third state (of 3), from the edition of 100 of which only 75 were printed, on cream laid paper, in excellent condition, with full margins, 4 x 5, the sheet 8 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, archival mounting (non-adhesive mylar hinges, acid free board).

A fine fresh impression in pristine condition.

Sloan said of this print: “One of the best of this group of etchings. Shows my interest in achieving foreshortening without perspective. …If I had done fifty plates as good, there would be something the matter. This kind of merit might become very monotonous. I might become a skilled craftsman….I have been playing around with the graver lately. It is very amusing and I like the clean severe line you can get with it. It is quite difficult to control a curved line, that is, to get something that isn’t just an ordinary curve. This plate of the Nude on the Floor has a great deal of graved work in it. These sets of graved lines have something that etched lines don’t have – a different tone.”

At this stage in his career, after the Ashcan Realist period and now in his late ’50s, Sloan experimented with new approaches to painting and drawing based on his study of Goya, Rembrandt, and Renoir – whose works were now accessible in New York. He developed a grid-line approach to his work, using his etched (and here also engraved) nudes to explore the concept. Viewed in this aesthetic context, we can appreciate Sloan’s nudes as achievements which transcend – artistically – the popular New York subjects that he did in earlier years, and demonstrate convincingly Sloan’s importance as an artist, not just a chronicler of a period.

$775

John Sloan (1871-1951), Woman with Hand to Her Chin, etching, c. 1913, signed in pencil by Sloan’s widow Helen Farr Sloan and annotated 150 proofs; also signed by the printer June Baskin and annotated “imp” lower left. Reference: Morse 165, only state. In very good condition, the full sheet, printed on a cream wove paper, 6 1/2 x 3 1/4, the sheet 10 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches, archival mounting.

A fine impression.

No early impressions of this print are known, and it was first printed in an edition in 1969, as signed by Sloan’s widow, for distribution with the Morse catalogue raisonne of Sloan’s prints.

Morse notes that the model appears to be a Miss La Rue, who posed for other Sloan prints such as Head with Necklace (M 163) and Girl in Kimono (M 164), and other paintings and drawings of that period. The plate may have been a demonstration plate for teaching, and thus no edition was issued at the time the plate was made.

$350