11:45 P.M.
LETTERIO CALAPAI (1901-1993)
11:45 P.M., etching, engraving and aquatint, 1947. 500×301 mm; 19×11⅞ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 2/35 in pencil, lower margin.
A very good impression.
Among Calapai’s best known images, the title (11:45 P.M.), composition, and subject matter suggest this is a portrait of Times Square, New York, on New Year’s Eve, just before midnight.
Between 1935 and 1943, Calapai completed works for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. From 1946 to 1949 he worked at Stanley Hayter’s Atelier 17; he then established a printmaking department at the University of Buffalo where he worked until 1955, then returned to New York where he established a printmaking workshop in Greenwich Village, taught at several universities, and continued to enhance his reputation as a prominent American artist and printmaker.