NEW YORK — Born in Australia, Martin Lewis (1881-1962) emigrated to the United States in 1900 and became renowned for his prints and etchings of New York. He ably captured the timelessness of the city from its people to its urban landscapes.
In his lifetime, Lewis’s work was very popular, though his output was limited. He produced slightly fewer than 150 drypoints and etchings (Picasso, by comparison, made more than 2,400 unique prints). Along with his friend Edward Hopper, Lewis was one of the leading artists of the Etching Revival (1850-1930). Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Lewis found success and receptive audiences for his New York City scenes that captured its character as well as its teeming life.
Despite his talent, Lewis and many other artists found themselves struggling economically in the 1930s. To save money, he left New York and relocated to rural Connecticut, switching his subject matter to pastoral landscapes. These pieces were not as desired by collectors, however, and by the time Lewis was able to move back to New York City in 1936, the Etching Revival was over. Lewis continued working, but failed to reach the career highs he once had, and he began teaching at the Art Students League to supplement his income.
In the ensuing decades, he has alternately been forgotten and celebrated. Kennedy Galleries in New York mounted a retrospective in 1973, and the Old Print Shop had one for him in 2016. Despite a seeming lack of attention paid by the museum world, collectors who seek out American Scene artists such as Lewis have retained a fondness for his prints.
“Buyers love Martin Lewis for the shadows — he was the master of the night, and the way that light hits his subjects is simply magical. They also love him for his realistic depictions of city life in the 1920s and 1930s,” said Monica Brown, vice president and head of the department of prints and multiples at Freeman’s Hindman.
One of Lewis’s most well-known prints is Relics (Speakeasy Corner). Depicting a street corner in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, this aerial view is noteworthy for its ability to capture mood and architecture. A 1928 drypoint attained $60,000 plus the buyer’s premium in November 2023 at Swann Auction Galleries. According to price databases, this sum represents the highest price paid at auction for one of Lewis’ prints in the past 30 years, said Meagan Gandolfo, a prints and drawings specialist at Swann Auction Galleries. “At one point or another, we can all identify with the people in this drypoint, feeling alone in a large city, and this is what resonates with collectors. Relics … is strikingly similar to Hopper’s earlier etching, Night Shadows, which also does extremely well at auction,” she said.
Checking all the boxes is a 1930 Lewis drypoint, Shadow Dance, which achieved $27,500 plus the buyer’s premium in September 2023 at Freeman’s Hindman. “This print has what all desirable Martin Lewis prints have: great tonality, a softness to the shadows inherent in the highly skilled art of the printing process, and excellent condition,” Brown said.
While most of his most beloved scenes of New York are nocturnes, a 1930 drypoint, Subway Steps, shows well-dressed commuters and families making their way around the busy city by day. A deeply-inked artist’s proof print, one of eight in this state, realized $28,000 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2022 at Swann Auction Galleries.
“He uses etching and drypoint to a masterful degree, creating extraordinary contrasts between dark and light, creating texture and highlighting small details,” said Sarah McMillan, another prints and drawings specialist at Swann Auction Galleries, who added, “He captures scenes of everyday life in New York City, which can either be full of life or empty and isolated, and are very popular with buyers.”
Only a few examples of Lewis scenes showing something other than New York are known. When one comes to auction, collectors take notice. An aquatint titled Which Way? depicting a couple driving along a snowy road in the country, probably in Connecticut, brought a robust price of $34,000 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021 at Soulis Auctions.
A Connecticut scene valued for its scarcity and subject matter is Misty Night, Danbury, an example of which went out at $26,000 plus the buyer’s premium in November 2022 at Swann Auction Galleries. According to author Paul McCarron in his catalogue raisonné, “This is the only depiction of fog in Lewis’s (1881-1962) printed œuvre, and the grainy nature of lithography is particularly suited to it. His use of a delicate tracery of crooked lines to denote tree limbs in the distance is, likewise, found only in this print.”
Lewis is a favorite with American audiences. Most of his rare state prints and seldom-seen scenes offered at auction land within or above their estimates. “We are finding that scarce, technically brilliant prints by Lewis are still selling at high price points and breaking auction records,” Gandolfo said.
Buyers looking to start a collection may be dissuaded, as the upper price end for Lewis is comparable to what some artists command for original paintings, but there are affordable options. His works derived from his travels to Japan are typically affordable, as are most of his Connecticut prints, with the above-mentioned examples being exceptions. “These prints are equally technical, though have less broad appeal to Lewis collectors,” Gandolfo added.
Lewis was at his best when capturing New York’s ephemeral moments. In Two A.M., he focuses attention on three young women walking arm-in-arm while a city worker hoses down the street. A 1932 first state drypoint, which brought $12,500 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2018 at Heritage Auctions, shows the artist’s mastery of inking out tiny details such as the dots in one woman’s hat and the merchandise in the shop windows.
An interesting print to consider is a drypoint of Late Traveler, which is signed by the artist and his daughter-in-law, Patricia Lewis, and printed posthumously circa 1982. It realized $10,000 plus the buyer’s premium in February 2023 at Swann Auction Galleries. The rich detail in the subject matter makes this work notable. Subway kiosks that Lewis includes in the composition were later torn down by the city but they live on in this print, which, despite the heavy black tones, still conveys the detail in their fish-scale-like roofs.
Lewis was a skilled printmaker whose images continue to resonate with buyers. His firm command of tonality and delicate shading of shadow and plate tone ensure that his prints are prized.
[/av_textblock]
