(interior with door and potted plant)

Albert Urban

Albert Urban used two screens to create this composition, a somewhat cubist approach to viewing a table and plant from above and a doorway and wallpaper head-on. Done in 1948, Urban does not indicate any limitation of the edition. At that time abstraction was still regarded with suspicion by most Americans.

With the idea of making his work affordable to the general public, Urban began working with the medium of serigraphy in 1942. He produced a number of small four and five color screenprints and he and his wife, Reva, opened Gallery Urban at 16 West Tenth Street in New York. He continued to work in serigraphy into the 1950s.

Nineteen of his screenprints, produced between 1944 and 1946, are listed in "The Early History of the Screenprint" by Reba and Dave Williams as published in the Print Quarterly in December 1986.

Between 1948 and 1958, Urban became something of a recluse and declined to exhibit or market his artwork.