Leadcut

Irving George Lehman

George Irving Lehman created a series of prints around the late 1930s to early 1940s in leadcut, experimenting with the more forgiving, soft metal medium to produce the abstract compositions he normally did in woodcut. Leadcut, having been used for the printed word since at least the 18th century, gained momentum in the art world in the 1930s partially owing to the wordless novel as executed in leadcut by German Expressionist Otto Nuckel. It produced a different texture on the paper than wood and copper and created a sometimes unpredictable inked surface that nonetheless lent interest to the composition.

Because lead is so soft and subject to dents, scratches, and the like and, without electroplating the surface, it is difficult to get a large edition.

Lehman "titles" this image with the technique he uses. He inks over the majority of the lead matrix, his etching of the surface is a direct collection of thin lines that suggest a surreal architectural structure with light showing through the linear elements.

In the early 1940s he worked for the WPA, and was a member of the American Artists Congress and the American Abstract Artists group.