Lot #2563: PAUL LANDACRE - Grass Fire - Wood engraving

 

Artist: Paul Landacre (American, 1893 - 1963).
Title: "Grass Fire".
Medium: Wood engraving.
Date: Composed 1928. Printed 1931.
Dimensions: Image size: 6 x 7 1/4 in. (152 x 184 mm).
Lot Note(s): Signed with the initials in pencil, lower right; annotated "TP" lower left. A trial proof apart from the edition of 500. Cream wove "Navarre" paper. Ample margins. Fine impression. Very good to fine condition; affixed to very thin and supple archival acid-free support sheet, not mount/board. Literature/catalogue raisonne: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Paul Landacre: Prints and Drawings,” November 6, 1983, exhibition catalogue #2. Provenance: This impression formerly in the collection of the renowned cinematograher Lucien Ballard (1908-1988), a good friend of Landacre. Comment(s): A very early, rare print. There are no auction sales in the past 35 years found in “Gordon’s Art Reference.” “In one of his most dynamic prints, ‘Grass Fire,’ Landacre’s…thundering flames nearly engulf the man visible to the right of center.” Sally Ruth Bourrie, J. Paul Getty Museum, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, 1983. Our example is from a collection of unbound and unsewn portfolio plates engraved and printed by Landacre, which later formed the basis of his work “California Hills and Other Wood Engravings." Image copyright © The Estate of Paul Landacre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. [30002-2-800]