Martin Lewis - Printmaker

I love Martin Lewis' black and white prints of life on the streets in New York City (mostly in the 1920s and 30s), which are the works he is best known for. Although he painted and sometimes drew in colors, his prints are considered to be his finest work. I would love to be able to add some of his pictures to this post, but most of his works are still under copyright and the pictures he made in his early days that are no longer under copyright are not typical of the works that I like best and that he is best known for (not that I don't like the others - some I like a lot but I thought that if I added only those pictures here someone might get the wrong impression, thinking that these were typical of his work, and might not bother to take a look at his works that I'm going to add links to below).

He was good at capturing light effects, both in day and night scenes, and he was also very good at drawing snowy and rainy scenes. I love the "social commentary" aspect of much of his work. Also, he obviously had a sense of humor (take a look at Boss of the Block, for instance -- There are links below to several of his pictures and also there's a video below showing some of his work).

BIOGRAPHY

Martin Lewis was born in Australia in 1881. He left home when he was fifteen with the intention of making his living at art. He traveled and sketched in the countryside of Australia and New Zealand, and from 1898 to 1900 he attended the James Ashton Art School near Sydney, Australia (that was his only official art education), and eventually found work as a merchant seaman. In 1900 at age 19 he sailed to the United States, first stopping at San Francisco where he got work as an artist working for William McKinley's political campaign. By 1909 he had settled in New York City, where he supported himself by working as a commercial illustrator.

For two years in the early 1920s Lewis lived in Japan where he drew and painted, and studied Japanese art. The influence of Japanese prints is very evident in some of his own prints made after that period. He returned to New York City and by 1930 was concentrating on the black and white pictures he is most famous for, mostly night pictures. I'm very intrigued by night pictures and also I love (non tourist/real life) street scenes in big cities, and although I've never done any printmaking I wish now that I'd learned to -- I love pen and ink drawings and enjoy drawing with a pen myself; so naturally these pictures (which look very much like pen and ink drawings) appeal strongly to me, and they also appeal to many others. People pay a huge amount of money for his prints these days.

In 1930 he and his family moved to Connecticut, but he stayed in contact with friends in New York and returned there to live in 1936 as he loved big city life and found life in the country too dull. He taught at the Art Students League from 1944 to 1951.  He died in 1962 in New York City.

Now for the best part of this - Links to several of Martin Lewis' pictures, ones that I myself like best.

LINKS TO PICTURES - SOME WITH COMMENTS

The Old Timer Battleship, 1916  One of his first prints.
Etching
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Something different by Martin Lewis -- a painting.  Lewis lived in Japan in the early 1920s.  Mt. Fuji - Looking across to Gotemba, c. 1920
oil on panel
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One of my own favorite pictures by Martin Lewis.  The Bridge near Nikko, 1926
Drypoint and sand ground
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Down the Hudson -- Smoke and Sunshine, c. 1926
print
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Derricks at Night, 1927
Etching-drypoint
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Glow of the City, 1929
drypoint on wove paper
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Stoops in Snow, 1930. This looks like it was influenced by his stay in Japan.
Drypoint
(And, by the way, you can have this one for only $50,000 - Just "add to basket," as it suggests)
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Shadow Dance, 1930
drypoint and sandpaper ground, trial proof
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Arch, Midnight (New York City), 1930
Drypoint
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Rainy Day, Queens, 1931
Drypoint
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R.F.D., 1933
drypoint and sandpaper ground
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Winter on White Street, 1934
Print
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Boss of the Block, c. 1939
Aquatint and etching
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Here is one of my favorites (but this isn't a good picture of it; I have a better picture of it but it's under copyright and I can't display it on this blog -- Unfortunately I didn't make a note of where I found it on the web and now I can't find it again). The subject is cars on a wet country road at night. Wet Night, Route 6, 1933
drypoint etching
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AT THE LINK BELOW THERE WAS A PHOTOGRAPH OF MARTIN LEWIS - But as someone wrote in the Comments section (in Oct. 2010), the photo is no longer on the page.  I've looked and looked to see if I could locate this photograph elsewhere, to no avail.  If you find it please let us know in the Comments section where to find it - Thanks!  Meantime, you will know where it was.  Where it was:

Title: Martin Lewis in a Subway Kiosk, 1951
Vintage silver gelatin photograph.
Photographer: Alfred Gescheidt.

This is very interesting. It is a photograph of a New York City night scene of the type Lewis drew, and what's even more interesting is that the man in the photograph coming up out of the subway is Martin Lewis himself. I think it would be very interesting and fun to try to draw this with pen and ink. By the way, you can buy this photograph for just $5,500.00.
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Late Traveler, 1949  This print was made before the photograph of Lewis (see above) was taken, apparently in the same setting.
Drypoint
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Here is a blog post on the "Articles & Texticles" site devoted to Martin Lewis, with several of his pictures that enlarge to a good size. The "Shadows, Garage at Night" is one of my favorites. After you open up a picture to a large size, click the X in the bottom right corner of the picture to close it and go on to the next one.
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VIDEO: BLUES IN MY HEART: BERT LOWN'S ORCH & MARTIN LEWIS-GRAPHICS
A series of New York City scenes by Martin Lewis
TIME: 3 MINUTES, 3 SECONDS



You can also see the above video on this page where you can read about the music recorded in 1932 that's played with the video.
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