Harriet Keese Lanfair

[Untitled] Beach Scene

1935

George Biddle (1885-1973), Coffee Huskers, 1928, lithograph, signed, titled and numbered [also inscribed ’43/Biddle/1928 in the plate]. Reference: Pennigar 77, Trotter 43. From the edition of 100, on Rives cream wove paper, with the Rives watermark. In excellent condition, probably never framed or matted, the full sheet, 13 1/4 x 9 3/4, the sheet 16 x 11 1/2 inches, archival mounting (mylar non-attached hinging between acid free boards glassine cover). A fine black impression. Biddle wrote of this lithograph, in 1943: “After scraping the tusche away…I worked back with a pensil (sic) and again with diamond. This all adds to the richness of texture and color.” This work produces a very sophisticated lithographic look, akin in some ways to drypoint work in etching. After Groton, Harvard College and Harvard Law (and several breakdowns) Biddle concluded that a conventional career in law was not for him; he decided on art, went to Paris, worked with Mary Cassatt and familiarized himself with modernist currents in art (as well as more traditional European art). After serving in WWI, and the dissolution of his marriage, he became interested in working outside of the European tradition (although his travels continued to include Europe, and he spent a period working under the influence of Jules Pascin in Paris in the mid-‘20’s). Coffee Huskers, like many of the Mexican and Haitian prints...

Reginald Marsh (1898-1934), Tattoo-Shave-Haircut, etching, 1932. Signed, titled (“Tattoo-Haircut-Shave”), dedicated (“for Arnold Newman”), and annotated (“Fourth State. First of Two Prints”). Reference: Sasowsky 140. On cream wove paper. In very good condition, with small margins (as trimmed, slightly irregularly, by the artist) (slight foxing in margins), remains of prior hinging verso; 9 7/8 x 9 3/4, the sheet 10 15/16 x 10 5/8 inches; archival matting. A very fine rich black impression; we have not seen impressions of comparable quality on the market. Provenance: Estate of Arnold Newman. Arnold Newman (1918-2006) was one of the great 20th Century masters of photography, and a friend of many leading artists; it is appears that Marsh took special care in printing this impression for Newman. Sasowsky calls for 10 states of Tattoo-Shave, based largely on Marsh’s notes. But the states are not clearly delineated (e.g., his States 3 and 4, one proof each, are characterized by Marsh as “Engraving added”; no information is given for State 5). The design for the print was complete in the first state, and subsequent state changes were not, apparently, major. This impression does not appear to differ in etching lines from the final state impression shown in Sasowsky. Its inscription (as a Fourth State, by Marsh), as well as its rich inking and quality, attest to its being a proof before the edition (of about 34 impressions), but the state of this print (and, presumably of many of the other several proof impressions) cannot at this time be stated with confidence. Marsh printed this impression personally (we recall his famous answer to a question about the size of his editions: “Since I do practically all my own printing, I do not limit the edition. The buyer limits the edition – he rarely buys, I rarely print”). Tattoo-Shave-Haircut depicts a scene in the Bowery, a section of New York’s Lower East Side, during the Great Depression. The building and train structures in the top half of the print recall Piranesi’s Carceri...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Published and printed by Art in America, New York in an edition of CDVII/D. From the folio, The Four Se...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Published and printed by Art in America, New York in an edition of CDVII/D. From the folio, The Four Se...