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New York: The Battery by Max Pollak

New York: The Battery

Max Pollak

Title

New York: The Battery

Artist

Max Pollak

1886 - 1970 (biography)

Year

c. 1927

Technique

color etching & aquatint

Image Size

12 3/8 x 16 1/8" platemark

Signature

pencil, lower right

Edition Size

1 of 150

Annotations

titled, lower left; bears the red stamp F.P.C. for Friedl Pollak Collection; stamped verso: Made in Austria; titled in pencil a second time along the sheet edge in lower left

Reference

No. 109 on the checklist of titles included in Pollak's exhibition at the University of California, April 3 - May 15, 1949

Paper

ivory wove

State

published

Publisher

Rudolf Lesch Fine Arts, New York

Inventory ID

22489

Price

$1,500.00

Description

Max Pollak was commissioned by author Theodore Dreiser to do a series of eight color etchings of New York which were reproduced in Dreiser's book "My City", published in 1929. This is one of the etchings that was not used.

Though the edition for the New York images was anticipated as 150 Pollak did not finish the whole edition, the stock market crashed the next year, 1929, when Dreiser's book was published, and the economic practicality of printing a full edition disappeared.

This view shows the southern tip of Manhattan and the New York Harbor. The low building near the water is the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which was built between 1902 and 1907 by the federal government to house the duty collection operations for the port of New York. The Battery is named for the artillery batteries that were positioned there in the city's early history to protect the settlement.

19^th, 20^th & 21^st Century Fine Prints

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