Rooftop and Skylights

Armin Landeck

Armin Landeck was trained as an architect but moved to printmaking early in his career. His early work was detailed realism, American scene drypoint and lithography. In the mid 1940s he found his way to S.W. Hayter's Atelier 17 in New York where the printmakers were experimenting with Surrealism and automatic line using and inventing primarily engraving techniques.

While at Atelier 17 Landeck began experimenting with engraved lines, burnishing off the burr to create a harder, more defined line and a type of analytical cubism to create his compositions. This experimenting "represents what may be described as the arbitrary - call them also abstract - design elements; that is, shapes which have no relation to structure or to the light sources...". 'Rooftops and Skylights' has various light sources which crisscross the lines of the composition and are "instrumental in building up the patterns of light and dark."

According to Landeck, this is the old roof of the former Delmonico's Hotel on East 14th St and 5th Avenue in New York. Landeck had a studio in the building, as did many other artists. He used the building as a source for many of his abstracted engravings.