?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 8,000
MARTIN LEWIS Building a Babylon, Tudor City, N. Y.C.
Drypoint printed in black on cream wove paper, 1929. 330x207 mm; 13x8 1/4 inches, full margins. Edition of 84. Signed and inscribed "imp" in pencil, lower right. A brilliant, early impression with richly-inked burr.
Lewis produced 32 prints between 1915 and 1920 before leaving for Japan that year. His stay was cut short in 1922 after experiencing difficulty learning the language and commercial success. Though short, this sojourn to Japan proved indispensable to his artistic development. His exposure to the Japanese sensibility influenced his printmaking following his return to America (he produced no prints in Japan, only watercolors and oils), as he honed his ability to imbue the mundane with the extraordinary--to take the simple moments he witnessed around the city and capture their profundity and beauty in etchings and drypoints. McCarron 76.
