New York, Evening on the East River

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

1928  

color etching & aquatint 

11 15/16 x 17 3/8" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

unnumbered 

titled, lower left; bears the red stamp F.P.C. for Friedl Pollak Collection; stamped verso "Made in Austria"; copyright stamp of Corp. Rud. Lesch NY in the lower left corner of the image 

Triton cat. 51 

ivory wove 

published 

Rudolph Lesch 

22490 

$3,000.00 

In this dynamic, industrial-urban image, the iconic Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City. Rather than depicting the bridge from the side - a more common perspective - Pollak opted to depict only a portion of the span from above, looking down and across from the Brooklyn side. A ghostly Manhattan is seen through the criss-crossing cables and a the haze of the marine layer as barges and ships along.

The Brooklyn Bridge was approved in 1869 and took fourteen years to build. It was the first steel suspension bridge in the U.S. and has a span of 1,600 feet. It is known for its beautifully designed granite towers and dramatic steel cables.

Max Pollak was commissioned by author Theodore Dreiser to do a series of eight 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, perhaps because the composition was comparatively large and Pollak did not want to shrink it to fit. The eight published works were done in editions of 150, and this image was probably an edition of 50 or fewer.