Gerry Peirce

Hilltop

c. 1935

Samuel Chamberlain, 'Manhattan Old and New', drypoint, 1929, edition 100, Chamberlain and Kingsland 81. Signed, titled, and numbered '81/100' in pencil. Titled and annotated '30.00' in pencil, in the artist's hand, bottom margin. Matted to museum standards, unframed. A superb, finely-detailed impression, with selectively wiped plate tone, on heavy Rives cream wove paper; full margins (1 1/2 to 2 1/4 inches), in excellent condition. The subject of the print is the lower Manhattan cityscape just before the Depression. Image size 8 3/4 x 6 13/16 inches (222 x 173 mm); sheet size 12 3/4 x 10 inches (324 x 254 mm). Impressions of this work are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art and the Zimmerli Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST 'There is something about the atmospheric vibrancy of an etching which imparts a peculiar and irresistible life to architectural drawing...A copper plate offers receptive ground to the meticulously detailed drawing which so often appeals to the architect'. —Samuel Chamberlain, from the Catalogue Raisonné of his prints. Samuel V. Chamberlain (1896 - 1975), printmaker, photographer, author, and teacher, was born in Iowa. His family moved to Aberdeen, Washington in 1901, and in 1913, Chamberlain enrolled in the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied architecture under Carl Gould. By 1915, he was enrolled in the School of Architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. With the United States' involvement in the First World War, Chamberlain sailed to France, where he volunteered in the American Field Service. In 1918, he was transferred to the United States Army to complete his tour of duty. After the war, he returned to Boston and resumed his architectural studies, which he eventually discontinued, working for a few years as a commercial artist. Chamberlain received the American Field Service Scholarship in 1923, which he used to travel to Spain, North Africa, and Italy. In 1924 he was living in Paris, where he studied lithography with Gaston Dorfinant and etching and drypoint with Edouard Léon, publishing his first etching the following year. In 1927, he studied drypoint with Malcolm Osborne...

'St. Mark's Church on the Bowery', aquatint with etching, edition not stated but small, 1932. Signed in pencil. Signed in the plate lower left and titled in the plate lower right. A superb, atmospheric impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 1/8 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 3/4 x 7 3/8 inches (248 x 187 mm); sheet size 13 1/8 x 10 inches (333 x 254 mm). Impressions of this work are held in the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum and the Five College Museums. ABOUT THE ARTIST Born in Vienna, Leon Dolice left a secure position in the family business to pursue his artistic interests. He began his art education in his teens and early twenties when he traveled through Europe to study the works of the Old Masters. He immigrated to America in 1920 and made his home in Manhattan. As a printmaker, he chose as his subjects the architecture, back streets, dock scenes, and other aspects of New York City life that were being overtaken by the modern world. In 1950, learning of the coming demolition of the Third Avenue El, Dolice created a series of Third Avenue and other New York City landmarks that were threatened with extinction. His images from that period provide a record of a New York that has passed into history. During his lifetime, Dolice exhibited throughout Europe and the United States. Retrospectives of his work include a one-man show of his graphic work at Tribeca Gallery, New York; the traveling exhibition ‘Vintage New York’ with the New Rochelle Council on the Arts; and the Hofstra Museum, Hempstead. Dolice's works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of the City of New York, the National Gallery of Art, the New York Historical Society, Georgetown University, the Philadelphia Print Club, and the New York Public Library, as well as private and corporate collections. ABOUT ST. MARKS CHURCH St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery is a parish of the Episcopal Church located at 131 East 10th Street, at the intersection of Stuyvesant Street and Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The property has been the site of continuous Christian worship since the mid-17th century, making it New York City's oldest site of continuous religious practice. The structure is the second-oldest church building in Manhattan. In 1651, Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, purchased land for a bowery or farm from the Dutch West India Company and, by 1660, built a family chapel at the present-day site of St. Mark's Church. Stuyvesant died in 1672 and was interred in a vault under the chapel. Stuyvesant's great-grandson, Petrus "Peter" Stuyvesant, sold the chapel property to the Episcopal Church for $1 in 1793, stipulating that a new chapel be erected to serve Bowery Village, the community which had coalesced around the Stuyvesant family chapel. In 1795, the cornerstone of the present-day St. Mark's Church was laid, and the fieldstone Georgian-style church, built by the architect and mason John McComb Jr., was completed and consecrated on May 9, 1799.[4] Alexander Hamilton provided legal aid in incorporating St. Mark's Church as the first Episcopal parish independent of Trinity Church in New York City. By 1807, the church had as many as two hundred worshipers at its summer services, with 70 during the winter. While the 19th century saw St. Mark's Church grow through its many construction projects, the 20th century was marked by community service and cultural expansion. Today, the rectory houses the Neighborhood Preservation Center, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, and the Historic Districts Council, as well as other preservation and community organizations such as the Poetry Project, the Millennium Film Workshop, and the Danspace Project. St Mark's has supported an active artistic community since the 19th century. In 1919, poet Kahlil Gibran was appointed a member of the St. Mark's Arts Committee, and the next year, the two prominent Indian statues, "Aspiration" and "Inspiration" by sculptor Solon Borglum...

The reference number on this work is Kraeft 88. It's from an edition of 100 and is signed, dated, and numbered, in pencil. Always an intaglio printmaker, Landeck switched from a mor...

Such an innovative image on the classic 'Riders in the Park' theme! Further, the use of drypoint and the rather direct -- even aggressive -- drawing style, bring it into the German E...