b/w etching and drypoint
1908
9 7/8 x 6 1/4
signed in pencil.
The image depicts a restaurant on New York's Mott Street with ornamental iron work on the balconies. There are six figures in the scene in various stages of contrast. Mott Street is considered the unofficial Main Street of New York's Chinatown. Ella Fitzgerald sang it best: “And tell me what street compares with Mott Street in July? Sweet pushcarts gently gliding by.” CFW Mielatz was an early influence on the drypoints and etchings of Martin Lewis. This piece was created in 1906 and it is signed in pencil. It is part of the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art C.F.W. Mielatz American, 1860-1919 Born in Bredding, Germany in 1864, Mielatz emigrated to the United States as a young boy and studied at the Chicago School of Design. Mostly self-taught, his first prints were large New England landscapes reminiscent of the painter-etcher school of American Art. Around 1890 he started to produce prints of New York City and by the time of his death, the number totaled over ninety images. He was a master technician in the field of etching, reworking many of his plates to get the exact feeling he was seeking. Mielatz was a member of the New York Etching Club and was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy in 1906. He succeeded James David Smillie as the etching teacher at the National Academy, a position he held for 15 years. According to Wilson’s Index of American Print Exhibitions, 1882-1940, he was involved in nine group exhibitions including the New York Etching Club, The Brooklyn Society of Etchers, and posthumously, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1929.
