Earl Horter On Sale

Earl Horter was born in 1881 in Germantown, Pennsylvania and was known for his realistic etchings and aquatints of urban scenes, though he was also an illustrator and painter. As a teenager, he engraved stock certificates. He was essentially self-taught, though he did take an etching class when he moved to New York City in 1903 to work for an advertising agency. Horter had a one-man show in 1916 in New York City at the Frederick Keppel and Company gallery. He was given the exhibition by Carl Zigrosser, later the first Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art. Horter was back in Philadelphia in 1917, where he would remain until his death in 1940. He worked there as an art director for the N. W. Ayer advertising firm from 1917–23. Horter was a member of the Society of Illustrators. He exhibited at the Pan American Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco, California; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; and the Philadelphia Print Club's National Exhibition of Prints; as well as Corcoran Gallery biennials from 1935–39, in Washington, D.C. Horter is listed in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Artists, Who Was Who in American Art and Mallett's Index of Artists. Though not a man of extraordinary means, Horter was a lover of modernist art, which he gradually purchased, creating an important collection, well ahead of its time in America, of Cubist and Precisionist works, as well as African sculpture and Native American artifacts. Horter collected include Europeans Picasso, Braque, Duchamp and Brancusi and Americans Charles Sheeler and Arthur B. Carles. He was a friend of Carles, as well as other artists and collectors such as Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra; Franklin Watkins; S. S. White; and Carroll Tyson. Horter turned a Philadelphia brownstone into a studio and gallery to house his collection, aided by Paul Cret, the designer of the Barnes Foundation and Rodin Museum. By 1931, Horter would begin selling his collection due to financial need brought about by the Depression. Horter was also a teacher in Philadelphia at the Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art; Graphic Sketch Club (now the Fleisher Art Memorial); and the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). In 1998, the Philadelphia Museum of Art put on an exhibition, “Mad for Modernism,” Horter and his collection, assembling once again many of the major works of art that comprised the artist's collection. In 1934, the Museum, then called the Pennsylvania Museum, had previously exhibited Horter's collection, though some of the works had already been sold. Several of Horter's prints are in the collection of Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.