Springtime: Immigrant Mother and Children

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Jerome Myers drypoint, Springtime: Immigrant Mother and Children, circa 1907, signed in pencil lower right, in good condition (soft printer’s creases lower left margin corner), on a soft cream wove paper with a shell/leaf watermark, wide margins, 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 (the sheet 17 1/4 x 11 1/2) inches, archival mounting.

A fine clear impression, with a veil of plate tone, with substantial drypoint burr.

Myers (1876-1940) was an actor and artist, a specialist in the American turn of the century immigrant experience, particularly those immigrants in the Lower East Side of Manhattan; this is a prototypical example of his work.  Active in the art life of the times, he was a prime mover behind the Armory Show of 1913, working with Walt Kuhn to get the (then) highly esteemed Arthur B. Davies to help run the show.  Myer’s paintings are an important part of America’s aesthetic and historical heritage; they can be found, for example, in the National Gallery in Washington alongside those of Bellows and the members of the Ashcan school.  Although his paintings show that he was a talented colorist, his etchings prove that he was (unlike several of his colleagues) also a master draughtsman, able to capture the spirit and atmosphere of the times with an impressionistic approach to printmaking.