Merry Go Round (also called: "Carousel II")

 

Arpad Szenes

  1898 - 1985 (biography)

1934  

Soft ground etching and engraving 

4 5/16 x 5 3/4" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

4 of 30  

titled, dated and editioned in pencil; verso: No5 / Caroussel II / 100 frs. / Arpad Szenes; large circular stamp on the verso that reads: "Celni Urad Praha" (Prague Customs Office) 

 

antique-white, laid Vidalon 

published 

artist at Atelier 17 in Paris 

16218 

SOLD

Hungarian born Arpad Szenes and his Portuguese born wife Maria Helena Vierra da Silva both experimented with both Cubism and Surrealism, both participating in the first decade of Atelier 17 in Paris.

"Merry Go Round" used softground etching, with textures impressed into the ground, combined with automatic line engraving to define the motion. The title describes the action within the image: the circular motion around a pole with biomorphic figures in a centrifugal spin.

Part of draw for printmakers was the experimental nature of Atelier 17 and the encouragement to use multiple intaglio techniques to achieve the desired composition, such as Szenes did with this plate.

Arpad Szenes'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.

This impression was in the collection of fellow Atelier 17 artist, Cathal Brendan O'Toole.