Hohenelbe

Max Pollak

Max Pollak was born in Czechoslavakia and raised in Vienna, Austria. A printmaker with a long and productive career, his intaglio subjects included genre, land and cityscapes, and portraits from throughout Europe, the Holy Land, the United States, and Latin America.

This image is one of a series of landscape prints Pollak did depicting winter in the Czech Republic. To print this composition he collaged a sheet of thin white laid paper that would capture the delicate drypoint lines to a support sheet of cream wove that allowed the print to be handled.

Hohenelbe is the German spelling and pronunciation of Vrchlabí, a town in the Trutnov District of the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia at the time of this etching's printing). Max Pollak depicts the T.G. Masaryka Square lined with buildings in Renaissance and Baroque styles, the silhouette of the Giant Mountains just beyond.