Doorway to Illusion
Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), Doorway to Illusion, soft-ground etching with aquatint printed in colors, 1919, signed by the printer Frank A. Nankivell lower left and with the estate stamp signature lower right. Reference: Czestochowski 93, third state (of 3). From the edition of 200 printed by Nankivell in 1929. In good condition, with traces of light or time stain in margins; with full margins, 7 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches, the sheet 12 x 9 inches.
A very good impression, printed on a cream laid paper with a Fortune Figure watermark (Van Gelder Zonen paper).
This was printed on the occasion of the release of Frederick Newlin Price’s catalogue raisonne, The Etchings and Lithographs of Arthur B. Davies, New York, Kennerly, 1929, just after Davies’s death. The first two states of the print were made in trial proofs only; the plate was cut down for the definitive state.
Frank A. Nankivell had assisted Davies with color printing from about 1924-5; he was introduced to Davies by their mutual friend Walt Kuhn.
At this stage of his career Davies began to revert to the symbolist imagery that he had employed prior to his experiments with cubism. Of these works the avant-garde artist Marsden Hartley commented:
“With Davies you are aware that it is entirely intimate personal life he is representing; a life entirely away from discussion, from all sense of problem; they are not problematic at all, his pictures; they have a lyrical serenity as a basis, chiefly. Often you have the sensation of looking through a Renaissance window upon a Greek world – a world of Platonic verities in calm relation with each other.”
Detail