Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Grant Wood (1891-1942),  Approaching Storm––– 1940, Lithograph.

Cole 16. Edition 250. Signed in pencil.

Image size 8 7/8 x 11 7/8 inches (225 x 302 mm); sheet size 10 3/4 x 14 1/4 inches (273 x 362 mm).

A superb, well-inked impression, on off-white wove paper, with margins (7/8 to 1 1/4 inches), in excellent condition.

The artist’s last print, published by Associated American Artists, 1940.

Reproduced: American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection, The Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987.

Collections: Albrecht-Kempler Museum of Art, Akron Art Museum, Art Complex Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Metropolitan Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, New Britian Museum of American Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Saint Louis Art Museum, Spencer Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, University of Iowa Museum of Art Digital Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art.

William Strang (1859-1921), Le Bourg de Batz, etching and drypoint on copper, 1913, signed in pencil lower right [also signed and dated in the plate].  Reference: Binyon 654, only state, edition of 58. In very good condition, printed in black/brown ink on an ivory laid paper, with full margins, 16 3/4 x 13 3/4, the sheet 20 x 17 1/2 inches.

A fine strong impression of this large composition.  Printed with a light veil of plate tone.

Le Bourg de Batz is a commune in western France; the town lies between the Bay of Biscay and its salt marshes, which Strang illustrates. The historic church of Saint-Guénolé or Winwaloe (towards the left of the composition), largely dating from the 15th century, stands in the town centre. The church contains a 16th-century sculpture of the Madonna and Child, and its 17th-century belfry provides a significant local landmark. Climbing to the top of the tower gives a good view over the salt marshes and the Le Croisic peninsula.

William Strang (1859-1921), Mother Earth, 1897, etching, drypoint, aquatint (listed in Binyon as etching mezzotint); signed in pencil lower right, and signed by the printer David Strang and inscribed “imp” lower left. Reference: Binyon 312, 35 proofs. With the notation in pencil lower margin “406 (312) final state.” In excellent condition, with margins, 7 3/4 x 6, the sheet 10 1/8 x 7.

A fine impression, printed with carefully wiped plate tone, so that the figure of Mother Earth and children is stands out; much tone is left on the top and central hilly area, and a subtle veil of tone left on the houses and field toward the foreground.

Printed in a brownish/black ink on an ivory laid paper with the watermark Dickenson & Co. 1814.

James Whistler (1834-1903), J.H. Woods’ Fruit Shop, Chelsea, etching and drypoint, 1887-88. Signed with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp,” also signed with the butterfly in pencil verso and numbered “1”. References: Kennedy 265 second state (of 2), Glasgow 327 second state (of 4).  Trimmed by the artist around the plate mark except for the tab, in excellent condition. Printed in black ink on ivory laid paper, 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity; the print was never published.  Glasgow accounts for four impressions.

watermark: partial arms of Amsterdam(cf. Spink/Stratis/Tedeschi, watermark nos. 12ff.)

This is before the third state in which heavy shading was added around the woman at the center, and the heads of figures at right and left of the figure are defined. In Glasgow’s fourth state the shading and the figure were removed; no impression is known of this state, but the state is inferred from the cancelled plate.

According to Glasgow “Joseph Henry Wood had a greengrocer’s shop at 1 Park Walk (off the Fulham Road), Chelsea, London in 1887. By 1888 he was at 391 Fulham Road.”  This is one of a number of Chelsea shop fronts etched by Whistler. 

Elyse Ashe Lord (1900-1971), Celestial Nymph I, c. 1930, color etching, soft ground, drypoint; signed lower right in pencil and numbered by the artist lower left. In very good condition, the full sheet, 8 1/4 x 10, the sheet 17 x 13 1/2 inches.

A fine impression, with strong color and plate tone on the nymph and surrounding decorations, and with pencil additions in various places on the nymph by the artist (using the same pencil as with signing). Printed on a light laid ivory Japan paper.

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries, New York (with their stock number A 32064)

Elyse Ashe Lord developed her unique artistic style exclusively around oriental subject matter. Her art was inspired by both Chinese art and various aspects of oriental culture. Although E.A.Lord never actually travelled to China, she used Chinese paintings, embroideries and wall hangings, together with objects from surrounding Eastern countries, as the sources for her images. The highly individual style which Elyse Lord created reflects both this source material and the influences of Art Deco and early 1920’s fashion.

In particular, Elyse Lord is unusual in combining the technique of drypoint with woodcut colour printing. She uses the drypoint design almost as the Japanese would have used a key block in multiple block colour printing. The colours would then be added by over-printing the drypoint design using colour-inked wood blocks, precisely as displayed by this unique series of progressive proofs. Elyse Lord would always supervise the difficult process of printing her plates and blocks, in person. [I am indebted to Michael Campbell, of Campbell Fine Art, for these biographical notes on Lord.]

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Sudarium Held by Two Angels, engraving, 1513 [with the monogram and date on a tablet]. References: Bartsch 25, Meder 26, Strauss 69. In very good condition, trimmed on the platemark all around (a fold(s) visible verso, some slight thin spots verso). On a laid paper without visible watermark (Meder indicates no watermark on Meder a-c impressions). 4 x 5 l1/2 inches.

Provenance:

NATIONALMUSEUM , Cabinet des Estampes, Stockholm (with their “doublett” stamp verso, Lugt 1935). The Nationalmuseum (Stockholm) had a substantial collection of Durer prints; duplicate examples were sold in auctions in Stockholm in 1903 and 1904.

A very good Meder b/c impression, with the scratch in the drapery at the left still visible; but before the scratch from the elbow to the drapery at the right.

ON RESERVE

James Whistler (1834-1903), J.H. Woods’ Fruit Shop, Chelsea, etching and drypoint, 1887-88. Signed with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp,” also titled by the artist in pencil verso.  References: Kennedy 265 first state (of 2), Glasgow 327 first state (of 4).  Trimmed by the artist around the plate mark except for the tab, in excellent condition. Printed in dark brown ink on laid paper, 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity; the print was never published: Glasgow accounts for only a few impressions, and none of the first state (known only through an illustration in Kennedy).

Provenance:

J. H. WRENN (1841-1911), agent de change, Chicago. Estampes. (his stamp, on each of the two hinges verso, Lugt 1475. 

This is before the second state in which short fine drypoint lines are added on the lower part of the window-panes at left along with more shading around the woman in the centre. In the third state much new etched shading is added around the woman in the centre. In Glasgow’s fourth state the shading and the figure were removed; no impression is known of this state, but the state is inferred from the cancelled plate.

According to Glasgow “Joseph Henry Wood had a greengrocer’s shop at 1 Park Walk (off the Fulham Road), Chelsea, London in 1887. By 1888 he was at 391 Fulham Road.”  This is one of a number of Chelsea shop fronts etched by Whistler. 

James Whistler (1834-1903), Lobster Pots – Selsea Bill, etching and drypoint, 1880-1, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp.” [also signed with the butterfly in the plate, and titled Selsea Bill, lower right].  Reference: Kennedy 235, Glasgow 241, fourth state (of 4). From the Twenty-Six Etchings (the Second Venice Set). In excellent condition, printed on a laid paper with a partial Strasbourg Lily watermark. 4 3/4 x 8 inches.

Provenance:

Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (his stamp verso, Lugt 394

Henry Harper Benedict (his stamp verso, Lugt 1298)

Charles C. Cunningham (his stamp verso, Lugt 4684)

A very fine impression, printed in a brown ink with plate tone over all; wiped selectively so that the foreground is a shade darker.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) Kristiania Boheme I (or Kristiania Bohemians I; Drinking Session/Drinking Bohemians), etching, drypoint and burnishing, 1895, signed in pencil lower right, also signed by the printer Felsing lower left. References: Willoch 9, Schiefler 10, Woll 15, third state (of 3). Kristiania Bohme I was included in the Meier-Graefe Portfolio, a portfolio of intaglio prints by Munch, printed by the firm of Angerer in Berlin in an edition of 65; impressions printed by Otto Felsing (including some such as this impression signed by him, were printed outside of the portfolio). In excellent condition, with full margins, 8 1/2 x 11 3/4, the sheet 15 5/8 x 21 1/4 inches.

A fine strong impression, printed in brown ink on an ivory wove paper.

The figures in the composition are probably a student named Holmsen at the right (with the hat); the writer Axel Maurer (1866-1925) in the center, and Munch himself in profile at the far left. Munch spent much of the 1880s with a group of young intellectual radicals, and often in these years he depicted himself and his friends as they discussed ideas, pursued women and wine in bars and cafs.

Oslo was called Kristiania (or Christiania) until 1925.

Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), The Dance in the Inn, etching, c. 1652-54). Reference: Hollstein 49, Godefroy 49, sixth state (of 9). In very good condition (possible strengthening or repair upper edge, slight rippling or handing folds), with small margins, larger at bottom, 25.7 x 32.2 cm.

Provenance:

A. J. Lamme (1812-1900), Rotterdam (Lugt 138, stamp verso). Lamme was a painter, who founded the Musee Boymans in 1849 and stayed as founding director to 1870. The sale of his collection was held in Amsterdam in 1901; the collection was described by Lugt as “beaucoup d’estampes de l’ecole hollandaise..”

Watermark: Foolscap with seven pointed collar; Godefry’s watermark number 22. Godefry notes “toutes les epreuves sur lesquelles il figure sont de qualite honorable and imprimee avec soin” (all the proofs with this mark are fine and printed with care); he dates the mark as used in the period 1680-85, the latter part of Van Ostade’s life.

A fine, lifetime impression, noted by Godefry as rare in this state.

The eminent Ostade collector and scholar S. William Pelletier (who owned one fine impression of the Dance, also a sixth state), noted that this “print, the largest executed by Ostade and in many ways the most carefully executed of his entire graphic production, led Rouir to call it the artist’s “Hundred Guilder Piece”, a reference to Rembrandt’s most famous etching” (which was completed a few years earlier).  The Dance is Ostade’s most complex print, and therefore has led scholars to various interpretations of the activities. For example Slatkes believed this print to be a wedding celebration. Stone-Ferrier suggested the leafy tree and branch on the floor are signs of an indoor May Day festival celebrating the transition from winter to spring. Whatever the interpretation, the composition is extraordinary.

This print is sold.