Mountain Scene
Ira Moskowitz (1912-1985), [Mountain Scene], 1943, lithograph, signed in pencil lower right, numbered lower left (27/50) [also signed and dated 1943 in the plate lower right], from the (presumed) edition of 50, not in Czestochowski. In pristine condition, on a cream wove paper with deckle edges, 10 1/8 x 14, the sheet 13 3/4 x 18 inches.
A fine impression of the hilly countryside, with donkeys and goats grazing on the hillside, farm cabins in the distance; probably Taos. A rarely encountered print, apparently not known to Czestochowski (and not in his catalogue raisonné).
Ira Moskowitz was born in Poland in 1912, a descendant of a long rabbinical line. The family moved to Prague in 1914, and then in 1927 to New York City, where Ira studied with Jerome Myers and Henry Wickey at the Art Student’s League. In 1939, Moskowitz made his first trip to Mexico, and stayed for six months. In 1943 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and moved to New Mexico, where he remained for seven years drawing the Indians and becoming an active member of the Taos-Sante Fe artists group which included John Sloan, a Moskowitz admirer.
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