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Architecture I (Economic Dirigee; The New Deal; The Tower) by Roger Vieillard

Architecture I (Economic Dirigee; The New Deal; The Tower) by Roger Vieillard

Architecture I (Economic Dirigee; The New Deal; The Tower)

Roger Vieillard

Title

Architecture I (Economic Dirigee; The New Deal; The Tower)

 
Artist

Roger Vieillard

  1907 - 1989 (biography)
Year
1935  
Technique
engraving 
Image Size
14 3/4 x 10 1/16" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
6 of 40  
Annotations
pencil titled and editioned; dated in the plate, lower right 
Reference
Hacker 20; Austin/Desmond catalogue 95 
Paper
cream Canson Vidalon laid 
State
published 
Publisher
artist, at Atelier 17 
Inventory ID
16205 
Price
SOLD
Description

This important, rare Surrealist engraving was done by Vieillard while working at Atelier 17 in Paris in the 1930s. Though not an official member of the Surrealists he knew many of them and was influenced by a number of their ideas.

"Architecture I" is a comment on the economic condition, the depression that gripped the world in the mid 1930's (in the U.S. it was exhibited as 'The New Deal'), a structure with classical elements, collapsing under its own weight, held together with wire. Hacker notes: "In a witty and whimsical touch, he engraved a tiny lizard on top of decaying masonry - the 'wicked capitalist' watching the chaos."

Vieillard's work was represented in the important 1944 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York titled "Hayter and Studio 17" which included 60 prints by 32 artists from 12 nations.