Earl Horter Art

Best known as an impassioned supporter and avid collector of modern art, Earl Horter was also an artist himself. Largely self-taught, Horter was a highly skilled draftsman and engrav...

Dark House is a soft-ground etching with aquatint signed in pencil by the artist. This image is in the collection of the Detroit Institute of the Arts Printmaker Earl Horter, born in 1881 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 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 art director for the N. W. Ayer advertising firm from 1917-1923. 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 to 1939, 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. Artists 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...

Earl Horter, 'The Woolworth Building Under Construction', etching, c. 1912, edition not stated. Signed in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, in warm black ink, with selectively...

Earl Horter (American, 1883-1940) Three Still Life Studies Pencil on paper, 7 1/4 x 13 1/2 inches; Framed: 17 x 21 inches NOTE: while originally mounted with archival materials, the...

Horter, Earl (American, 1881-1940). UNTITLED (CHURCH IN SNOW). Etching and aquatint, not dated. Signed in pencil, lower right. 6 1/4 x 5 inches (plate), 11 x 8 5/8 inches (sheet). An...

Horter, Earl. NEW YORK CITYSCAPE. Etching, not dated. Edition size not known. Printed on heavy laid paper, and signed in pencil. 6 1/2 x 6 1/8 inche...

Signed in pencil. A European town square with fountain and tower.

Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, Earl Horter was a self-taught artist who began his career working in New York City as a draftsman at an advertising agenc...