Samuel Chamberlain

'Soaring Steel' — Vintage Chicago Cityscape

1929

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...

Ira Moskowitz, 'The Three Gods of Healing (Navajo Medicine Ceremony of the Night Chant)', lithograph, 1945, edition 30, Czestochowski 148. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed and dated in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (2 1/4 to 2 3/4 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 12 1/4 x 15 13/16 inches (311 x 402 mm); sheet size 17 1/8 x 20 7/8 inches (435 x 530 mm). ABOUT THIS WORK The nine-night ceremony known as the Night Chant or Nightway is believed to date from around 1000 B.C.E. when it was first performed by the Indians who lived in Canyon de Chelly (now eastern Arizona). It is considered the most sacred of all Navajo ceremonies and one of the most difficult and demanding to learn, as it encompasses hundreds of songs, dozens of prayers, and several highly complex sand paintings. And yet the demand for Night Chants is so great that as many as fifty such ceremonies might be held during a single winter season, which lasts eighteen to twenty weeks. The Night Chant is designed both to cure people who are ill and to restore the order and balance of human and non-human relationships within the Navajo universe. Led by a trained medicine man who has served a long apprenticeship and learned the intricate and detailed practices that are essential to the chant, the ceremony itself is capable of scaring off sickness and ugliness through techniques that shock or arouse. Once the disorder has been removed, order and balance are restored through song, prayer, sand painting, and other aspects of the ceremony. The medicine men who supervise the Night Chant ensure that everything—each dot and line in every sand painting, each verse in every song, each feather on each mask is arranged precisely, or it will not bring about the desired result. There are probably as many active Night Chant medicine men today as at any time in Navajo history due to the general increase in the Navajo population, the popularity of the ceremony, and the central role it plays in Navajo life and health. ABOUT THE ARTIST Ira Moskowitz was born in Galicia, Poland, in 1912, emigrating with his family to New York in 1927. He enrolled at the Art Student's League and studied there from 1928-31. In 1935, Moskowitz traveled to Paris and then lived until 1937 in what is now Israel. He returned to the United States in 1938 to marry artist Anna Barry in New York. The couple soon visited Taos and Santa Fe in New Mexico, returning for extended periods until 1944, when they moved there permanently, staying until 1949. During this especially productive New Mexico period, Moskowitz received a Guggenheim fellowship. His work was inspired by the New Mexico landscape and the state’s three cultures (American Southwest, Native American, and Mexican). He focused on Pueblo and Navajo life, producing an extensive oeuvre of authentic American Indian imagery. He and Anna also visited and sketched across the border in Old Mexico. While in the Southwest, Moskowitz flourished as a printmaker while continuing to produce oils and watercolors. Over 100 of Moskowitz’s works depicting Native American ceremonies were used to illustrate the book American Indian Ceremonial Dances by John Collier, Crown Publishers, New York, 1972. After leaving the Southwest, printmaking remained an essential medium for the artist while his focus changed to subject matter celebrating Judaic religious life and customs. These works were well received early on, and Moskowitz was content to stay with them the rest of his life. From 1963 until 1966, Moskowitz lived in Paris, returning to New York City in 1967, where he made his permanent home until he died in 2001. Shortly before his death, Zaplin-Lampert Gallery of Santa Fe staged an exhibition of the artist's works, December 2000 - January 2001. Other one-person shows included the 8th Street Playhouse, New York, 1934; Houston Museum, 1941; and the San Antonio Museum, 1941. The artist’s work was included in exhibitions at the Art Students League, Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Print Club, College Art Association (promotes excellence in scholarship and teaching), and the International Exhibition of Graphic Arts (shown at MOMA, 1955). Moskowitz’s lithographs of...