Print of the Day!! Fri, July 5, 2024 is by Max Pollak (1886-1970): "Paris: Vogelmarkt," etching, ca 1915, edition of 10.

Print of the Day!! Friday, July 5, 2024. is by Czech-American printmaker?Max Pollak (1886-1970)

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"Paris: Vogelmarkt," (Birdmarket), small plate, is an intaglio - an etching, printed in a sepia ink, done around 1915. The platemark measures 9 x 8-1/4 inches. This impression is pencil signed and titled by the artist in the lower margin and has the red FPC (Friedl Pollak Collection) stamp in lower left sheet corner. It is pencil annotated "printed a 10" and is stamped "Made in Austria" on the verso. It was printed by the artist on a sheet of ivory laid paper that measures 17-3/8 x 14-1/4 inches. Our inventory number for this work is 22677 .

This expressive color intaglio by Max Pollak is available from the gallery for purchase. Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

Pollak did this etching around 1915 in Paris. He used many of the etching techniques developed by Whistler a few decades before; focusing the viewer's attention on the elements that interested him, indicating a context using a few well chosen lines and adding brown color to the ink when printing the plate to suggest a "color" to the composition.

The subject is the famous Parisian Bird Market, the "Marché aux Oiseaux" which takes place in the Louis Lépine flower district on the Il de la Cité on Sunday each week.

Now expanded to a pet market, dealers set up, often in antique cages, offering for sale various birds; finches, doves, canaries, parrots, as well as chickens, ducks and domestic fowl. On the ground are aquariums, hamsters, etc. It now is one of the last remaining pet markets in Europe.

This impression has a pencil inscription in the artist's hand that reads "Printed a 10". Though he anticipated an edition of 100 it appears he only printed 10 impressions. A larger, color aquatint plate of the subject was confiscated by the Nazis in the 30s and it is likely this plate was also.

Max Pollak, painter and printmaker, was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1886. He was raised in Vienna and, in 1902, he entered the Vienna Academy of Art where he studied under William Unger and Ferdinand Schmutzer. In 1912, Pollak traveled to Italy, France, and Holland to study and paint. During the First World War, he was appointed painter of the Austrian Army.

The Pollaks immigrated to the United States in 1927, living for a time on the east coast where Max produced a series of color aquatints of New York, Cincinnati, and Detroit. His first exhibition was at the 57th Street Art Gallery in New York and he was commissioned by author Theodore Dreiser in 1929 to illustrate his book, My City . In 1938, Pollak and his wife, Friedl, moved to San Francisco, California. Pollak was inspired by his new city and its environs and produced beautiful views of San Francisco Bay Area. Later travels included trips to Mexico and Guatemala. Max Pollak was a member of the Chicago Society of Etchers and the California Society of Etchers.

His work is represented in the collections of the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Berkeley, California; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene; the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library, New York; the Oakland Museum of California Art; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

To purchase this work, see other works, or read a biography for Max Pollak use this link to our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/1894/Pollak/Max

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