Bar en Pennsylvanie

Jean-Emile Laboureur - Bar en Pennsylvanie

 

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Bar en Pennsylvanie, etching, 1914. Signed in pencil lower left and numbered 21/35 lower right [also signed and dated lower in the plate lower left]. Printed in a dark brownish/black ink on cream laid MBM paper (with the watermark). Reference: Laboureur 134, only state, from the edition of 35. In very good condition, the full sheet (slight soiling in margin edge upper left, small tear margin edge bottom, remains of prior hinging verso). 8 1/4 x 8 5/8, the sheet 13 x 11 inches.

A fine impression of this quintessential cubist print.

In the famed exhibit The Cubist Print (1981) Burr Wallen wrote of Bar en Pennsylvanie “The jaunty cut of the jacket worn by the central figure in the Bar en Pennsylvanie makes an equally whimsical takeoff on Villon’s faceted hatching, while the dapper swing curl of the young bartender pokes fun at eccentricities of Cubist hairstyle. The egg-shaped heads articulated by a single line for the nose deftly allude to simplification of form by Brancusi. In places they are left entirely blank.”