Harris Schrank Fine Prints

John Buckland Wright (1897-1954), The Virgin and the Unicorn (large version),  wood engraving in colors, 1947, the original block and a proof, the proof titled, signed and dated lower margin. Reference: The Engravings of John Buckland Wright, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Buckland Wright, L 142. 6 1/16 x 4 1/16 inches, framed.

A fine impression of this great rarity, one of the three artist’s proofs (there was no edition), together with the block.

There was an earlier small version (Ld 155), which was rejected. The background on this print is described in Buckland Wright as follows: “Experimental prints using water or oil based inks, 3 artist’s proofs. Colour block printed in the same manner aqs for those in Andre Derain’s Pantagruel. The colours in the print are similar.  JBW wold have been informed of the details for printing from his friend the printer Lacouriere who directed the printing for Pantagruel. This colour block and prints were prepared for the Arts Council (Great Britain).”

In the 1930’s, 1940’s and early 1950’s three artists did a great deal to launch British engraving into the exciting waters of contemporary European art: the New Zealander John Buckland Wright and two Englishmen William Hayter and Anthony Gross. They all had French attachments and were quite independent of the influences of earlier and highly successful schools of British engraving. Buckland Wright helped Hayter to found his famous Atelier 17 in Paris. At this workshop, in which artists experimented at novel methods of printmaking, JBW (as became known by his initials) worked with artists such as Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Miró, Dali. Later when teaching at the Camberwell and Slade Schools of Art, he was able to communicate to his pupils his experience of how these artists worked.

JBW’s work is characterized by the portrayal of the sensuous nude, in which the female form is depicted with grace and charm. The source for his artistic expssion has its origin in his experiences during the First World War. Having joined the Scottish Ambulance Service, he was seconded to the French Army at Verdun, the sector in which the French suffered the greatest devastation during the First World War. There he witnessed harrowing scenes of human devastation while rescuing wounded and dying men from the front line trenches. Following the war, JBW found relief in drawing the female figure that incorporated the romantic ideal of Greek philosophy into the very essence of the emotional expssion of his work. Through his art he was able to come to terms with the horrors he had experienced during the war and to restore unity and tranquillity to the devastated landscapes, to repair the damage that war had wrought on his love of nature. Once more he would fill his world with beauty of a timeless quality he had experienced in the gardens and countryside of New Zealand and England. He found his emotional renewal through his art. It was in this way that he was able to expss his fundamental belief in the renewal of life and of the human spirit and to rediscover the joy he felt as a young man in nature’s soothing beauty. [from Christopher Buckland-Wright, introduction to the catalogue for the show Master of the Burin, the Book Illustrations of John Buckland Wright, 2006]

Jacques Lipschitz (1891-1973), Leda and the Swan, 1947, etching, three states. Reference: Bibliotheque Nationale Inventaire du Fonds Francais, p. 358.  In very good condition.

Fine strong impressions of three progressive states, including the final state.

The last state of this etching was created in an edition of 50 for loose insertion in the édition de tête copies of the book Lipschitz, a monograph on the sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz from 1911 to 1945 with a prefatory essay by Maurice Raynal (Paris. Editions Jeanne Bucher. 1947. Folio. pp. 18. Monochrome frontispiece reproducing Modigliani’s portrait of Lipchitz and his wife (‘Portrait de Jacques Lipchitz et sa Femme’) and 71 monochrome plates (‘similigravure’) of sculptures by Lipchitz after photographs by Marc Vaux and Colten)

Laboureur - La Fille aux Oies, 1916

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), La Fille aux Oies, engraving, 1916, signed in pencil lower left, numbered (4/40) lower right and inscribed “imp,” also titled lower left margin edge. Reference: Sylvan Laboureur 159, second state (of 2), from the edition of 40.In very good condition, with margins (remains of prior hinging verso), 6 3/4 x 6 1/8, the sheet 11 x 8 3/4 inches.

A fine impression of this early cubist-influenced engraving.

In 1917 Apollinaire wrote to Laboureur: “Je voudrais bien avoir le portrait de femme [L. 170] et la gardienne d’oies promis.”

Donald Shaw MacLaughlin (1876-1938), Doorway of the Doges, Venice, etching with plate tone, 1909, signed bottom right [also signed and dated in the plate]. Reference: Marie Bruette 124, only state [reproduced after page 91 in the Bruette catalogue], a probable edition of c. 50. In good condition, with small margins all around, trimmed to or just inside the plate mark at the top, with a repaired area at the top. On medium laid Van Gelder Zonen paper with a partial watermark.  15 5/8 x 8 inches.

A fine impression, printed in dark brown ink, with plate tone overall but wiped selectively to focus light on the center of the composition.

Maclaughlin created a smaller version of this masterpiece in 1899, as a beginning etcher (cf. Bruette 13); he returned to the subject a decade later as a master printmaker.

Lesser Ury - Farmer Digging

Lesser Ury (German, 1861–1931), , drypoint, Grabender Bauer (Farmer Digging), c. 1920, signed in pencil lower right and numbered xxix/xxx, from the edition of 30 on Japan (another 100 were editioned on wove). Reference: Rosenbach 102, only state.  In excellent condition, printed in black on extremely thin laid Japan, with margins, 7 1/16 x 4, the sheet 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches.

A fine rich impression with substantial burr from the drypoint work.

Ury was born in Birnbaum, the son of a baker whose death in 1872 was followed by the Ury family’s move to Berlin. In 1878 Lesser left school to apprentice with a tradesman, and the next year he went to Düsseldorf to study painting at the Kunstakademie. Ury spent time in Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart, and other locations, before returning to Berlin in 1887.

His first exhibition was in 1889 and met with a hostile reception, although he was championed by Adolph von Menzel whose influence induced the Akademie to award Ury a prize. In 1893 he joined the Munich Secession, one of the several Secessions formed by progressive artists in Germany and Austria in the last years of the 19th century. In 1901 he returned to Berlin, where he exhibited with the Berlin Secession, first in 1915 and notably in 1922, when he had a major exhibition. By this time Ury’s critical reputation had grown and his paintings and pastels were in demand. His subjects were landscapes, urban landscapes, and interior scenes, treated in an Impressionistic manner that ranged from the subdued tones of figures in a darkened interior to the effects of streetlights at night to the dazzling light of foliage against the summer sky.

Ury is especially noted for his paintings of nocturnal cafe scenes and rainy streets. He developed a habit of repeating these compositions in order to sell them while retaining the originals, and these quickly made and inferior copies have harmed his reputation.

Always introverted and distrustful of people, Ury became increasingly reclusive in his later years. He died in Berlin and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee. [from Wikipedia]

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Nu, Époque du Chapeau Jaune, 1929, etching in black on grey/tan Chine-collé on heavy cream wove with deckle edges all around, signed, titled and numbered in pencil lower right [also signed and inscribed in the plate lower right]. Reference:  Duthuit 220, only state. In excellent condition, 9 7/8 x 5, the sheet 14 3/4 x 11 1/8 inches.

A fine warm impresssion.

In his small edition etchings and drypoints Matisse displayed a mastery of draftsmanship unmatched in modernist printmaking. Nu, Époque du Chapeau Jaune is a splendid example of Matisse’s genius.

Matisse – Etudes

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Etudes, 1932, etching in black on grey/tan Chine-collé on heavy cream wove, signed and titled in pencil lower right. Reference:  Duthuit Books p. 33 (Studies for Matisse’s illustration designs for Stéphane Mallarmé’s Poésies). In very good condition, the full sheet, 9 1/2 x 5 1/2, the sheet 14 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches.

A fine impression of this rare page of studies. The sheet consists of a half-dozen nudes in various degrees of definition, and two portraits at the lower left, one a face, the other a woman in a hat and dress with a fan (in the final book the woman with the fan is featured alone in a similar posture, but in reverse).

Poetry was an important source of inspiration for Matisse, and for years he maintained the practice of reading poetry early each day before he raised a paint brush, pencil or etching needle.  In his lifetime he produced a number of illustrated books which were known as “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book);  Poésies, of 1932, with mythologically inspired images based on texts by Stéphane Mallarmé, was his first such venture.

Francisco Goya – That’s Tough – Proof

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 Fuendetodos – Bordeaux 1828), Fuerte cosa es! – That’s tough!    ca. 1808–1814, etching, burnished aquatint, and drypoint on laid paper; 155 x 203 mm (6 1/16 x 8 inches), Harris 151.I.3 (of III.7)

watermark: Serra

provenance
Infante Don Sebastian de Borbón y Braganza
Georges Provôt, Paris;
his sale, Hôtel Drouot, April 10, 1935, lot 60
private collection, Germany

Proof impression for plate 31 of Los Desastres de la Guerra, with the earlier number 32 in the lower left corner, before additional drypoint work and border lines.

No impression of state I.1 (before the aquatint) is known and only one impression (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale) of state I.2 (before any numbers). Harris list lists eight impressions of state I.3, including this one.

Goya’s Desastres was conceived in three phases. One group depicts scenes from the famine that raged in Madrid in the winter of 1811–12 as a result of the French occupation. Another group was created between 1820 and 1823, a late addition to the set and mainly consisting of more allegorical scenes. The two prints presented here belong to the earliest and largest group of prints, etched between 1808 and 1814. These images present the most direct reflection of the effects and cruelties of the war with France.

The grim-looking mamelouck fighter is about to return his saber to its sheath. One of his fellow French soldiers tugs at the boots of one of the two corpses hanging from the tree on the right. Behind him another soldier is apparently attacking a woman. Goya’s title here can only be cynical.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 Fuendetodos – Bordeaux 1828),  No se puede saber por qué  – One can’t tell why    ca. 1808–1814,  etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint, and burin on laid paper; 155 x 203 mm (6 1/8 x 8 inches),  Harris 155.I.2 (of III.7)

provenance

Infante Don Sebastian de Borbón y Braganza

Georges Provôt, Paris; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, April 10, 1935, lot 64

Tomás Harris, London (not in Lugt)

private collection, Germany

A fine, rich proof impression for plate 35 of Los Desastres de la Guerra, before numbers, letters, and before additional drypoint and burin work.

No impression of state I.1 (before the aquatint) is known nor are any proof impressions with numbers (Harris’ hypothetical state I.3) known. Harris lists nine impressions of state I.2, including this one.  This is a lifetime impression; the edition was published posthumously.

No less than eight convicts are about to be garroted. Each man clutches a crucifix—a sign that they have already made their last confession. Their crime—ownership of a weapon— is announced on placards hanging around their necks, alongside the weapons themselves. Many Spanish citizens were executed this way. Their crimes were not only murder and armed robbery; suspicion of espionage for the insurgents or any other support for them was sufficient to subject the accused to this cruel fate.

An impression from the First Edition is shown below, for comparison purposes (this impression is also available)