Approaching Storm, Manhattan

Armin Landeck

Manhattan's urban landscape provided Landeck with a rich source of imagery for his prints. In Approaching Storm, Manhattan, the view of the city is from a rooftop where the curved top of the ladder stands in contrast to the hard-edged buildings and their angular shadows.

Many artists were fascinated by what "modernity" brought to the landscape, and were able to see the beauty despite the beast. For this intaglio, Landeck was inspired by the hard angles of the skyscrapers and rooftops, contrasted with the random billowing clouds in the background. His use of etching and the engraving burin allows Landeck to create a direct, precisionist, crisp composition, using just lines.

Like many depression era printmakers Landeck often did not print a completed edition, preferring to pull a few proofs to send to shows and perhaps hopefully sell one every now and then in the midst of the Great Depression. Editions would be printed at a later date.

Armin Landeck, printmaker and educator, was born in Crandon, Wisconsin on 4 June 1905. He studied at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and received his Bachelor's degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1927. While in New York, he studied life drawing with George B. Bridgman at the Art Students' League.

Landeck studied printmaking at Columbia University and produced his first prints in 1927. He married that same year and consequently travelled for eighteen months in Europe rendering the architecture in drawing and etching. Upon his return home in 1929, he was unable to procure employment as an architect so he moved to East Cornwall, Connecticut and made the decision to focus on printmaking and teaching. In 1931, he joined the faculty of the Brearly School, an all-girls private school located on the upper east side of Manhattan, and taught there until his retirement in 1958.

In the fall of 1934, Landeck joined forces with fellow artist Martin Lewis when they opened the School for Printmakers at George Miller's Fourteenth Street lithography studio. They offered classes on lithography, etching, drypoint, mezzotint, and wood engraving but their school was forced to close in 1935 due to the economy. Landeck met Stanley William Hayter in the 1940s and began to work at. in New York, where he made his first engraving.

Armin Landeck died in Litchfield, Connecticut on 1 December 1984.