New York: The Battery by Max Pollak

New York: The Battery by Max Pollak

New York: The Battery

Max Pollak

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Title

New York: The Battery

 
Artist

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)
Year
c. 1927  
Technique
color etching & aquatint 
Image Size
12 3/8 x 16 1/8" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
1 of 150  
Annotations
titled, lower left; bears the red stamp F.P.C. for Friedl Pollak Collection; stamped verso: Made in Austria; titled in pencil a second time along the sheet edge in lower left 
Reference
No. 109 on the checklist of titles included in Pollak's exhibition at the University of California, April 3 - May 15, 1949 
Paper
ivory wove 
State
published 
Publisher
Rudolf Lesch Fine Arts, New York 
Inventory ID
22489 
Price
$1,500.00 
Description

Max Pollak was commissioned by author Theodore Dreiser to do a series of eight color etchings of New York which were reproduced in Dreiser's book "My City", published in 1929. This is one of the etchings that was not used.

Though the edition for the New York images was anticipated as 150 Pollak did not finish the whole edition, the stock market crashed the next year, 1929, when Dreiser's book was published, and the economic practicality of printing a full edition disappeared.

This view shows the southern tip of Manhattan and the New York Harbor. The low building near the water is the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which was built between 1902 and 1907 by the federal government to house the duty collection operations for the port of New York. The Battery is named for the artillery batteries that were positioned there in the city's early history to protect the settlement.

 

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.