Abend im Dorf (Evening in the Village) - with preliminary drawing.

Max Pollak

This early Max Pollak drawing and etching is of a village, probably in his native Czechoslovakia, looking across a stream at twilight. A bridge leads the viewer up a street with houses on one side and on the other, behind a large tree, the steeple of the local church.

This was done before Pollak had perfected his color aquatint technique and was executed using just etching. Like many printmakers, Pollak worked from sketches he made while he traveled. This drawing is sold with the etching he did in 1906. The etching is printed in reverse of the drawing, a result of the intaglio process.

Max Pollak was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia on February 2, 1886, but his family moved to Vienna, Austria when he was six months old. He was raised in Vienna and, in 1902, at sixteen years of age he entered the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He studied painting and printmaking under William Unger and Ferdinand Schmutzer. In 1912, he traveled to Italy, France, and Holland to study and paint. During the First World War, he was appointed painter of the Austrian Army.