Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Martin Lewis (1881-1962), Showers on the Bay, drypoint and sand ground, 1925, signed in pencil bottom right and annotated “imp” (indicating printed by the artist), also signed in the plate lower right. Reference: McCarron 46, second state (of 2). Printed on a wove paper with the watermark SWEDEN in a brownish/black ink. In very good condition, with margins (the slightest toning in margins), 7 3/4 x 11 7/8, the sheet 11 5/8 x 16 1/4 inches.

Provenance: possibly Lucile Deming Lewis (Lewis’s wife), her initials in pencil lower left recto.

A fine impression, one of 23 recorded impressions.

Showers on the Bay is one of the most highly regarded of Lewis’s Japan prints. McCarran noted “This is one of the most beautiful of Lewis’s Japan etchings. The drifting curtains of rain are an especially effective counterpoint to the silhouettes formed by the beached boats and the figures in the foreground.” Of the 14 Japan prints Lewis created, it is one of the few that shows the influence of Ukiyo-e, e.g., the asymmetrical composition, the transitory world of rain and mist.