New York from Staten Island Ferry; a.k.a. New York Skyline; pl. #1 from Miniature Series

John Taylor Arms

The first image from John Taylor Arms' Miniature Series #1, this is a drypoint of the Manhattan skyline as seen from the deck of the Staten Island Ferry. The scene is finely composed to show the peaks and valleys of the famous horizon as it emerges from the fog. Arms misses nothing in this familiar view, even down to the drifts of steam emerging from the ships in the midground.

Though this impression is numbered by Arms as 20 of 35, the Fletcher catalogue lists only 20 impressions printed in 1917, with six more impressions pulled later, five in 1938 and one in 1946 - a total of 26 impressions. This impression is likely the last from the 1917 campaign, the final 15 of which were pulled by Frederick Reynolds. There was a pencil inscription that read "printed by Frederick Reynnolds" which was erased and the Arms signature extended.

John Taylor Arms, printmaker, lecturer, illustrator, and administrator, was born in Washington, D.C. on 19 April 1887. He first studied law at Princeton University but transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture, earning a Master’s Degree in 1912. He studied with Ross Turner, David A. Gregg, and Felton Brown. For five years after his graduation Arms worked for the architectural firm Carrere and Hastings, before establishing his own architectural firm of which he was a partner.

A gift of an etching kit from his wife, Dorothy, changed the course of his life. He produced his first etching in 1915 and he eventually produced 441 prints, mostly etchings. Arms became one of the most famous printmakers of the first half of the twentieth century. He is mostly noted for his etchings of medieval architecture but early subjects also included ships, sailboats, airplanes, rural landscapes, and the streets, buildings, and bridges of New York.

Arms’ exhibition history was lengthy beginning in 1927 and continuing to 1952. He authored 'Hand-Book of Print Making and Print Makers' in 1934 and illustrated 'Churches of France' and 'Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy' by his wife, Dorothy Noyes Arms. His work can be found in most major collections of American prints.

Arms was an activist for printmaking and assisted in assembling exhibitions of American graphic art that were shown in Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Rome; he was editor of the Print Department of Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, and he lectured on the techniques, history and value of original prints. Arms also served as the president of the Tiffany Foundation in 1940. John Taylor Arms died in New York City on 15 October 1953.