Soyer, Raphael. PASSER-BY. Etching, 1935 (Cole 40,).
Signed in pencil. 9 5/16 x 6 7/8 inches; 237 x 175 mm. Edition of 2 or 3, per Cole, "about three" per Gettings, "Raphael Soyer Sixty-Five Years of Printmaking (Hirschorn catalogue)."
Provenance, The Arnold Collection, New York, to Swann Gallies, New York, to a private New York collection. One of the rarest and among the finest of Soyer's early prints. In excellent condition.
This is the second example of this print we have owned. It differs from the example illustrated as Cole 40, and both are different from the other one we owned. It suggests that Soyer experimented with different states of this etching, and ended by abandoning it without producing an edition.
Soyer comment, quoted in Gettings: "This is after a painting called "New Hat." The model was Erica, a young woman who posed for me a great deal. She also posed for Reginald Marsh. The etching is about a girl dressed up in a coat, gloves and hat passing a store window on a cold day. I observed people walking like this girl and tried to reproduce it in my studio."
In later years Soyer reworked, and
published in large editions of 250 to 300, images from his early
graphic oeuvre. Often these later pieces were done in color where the
original has been in black & white, usually they are lithographs,
almost always they suffer in comparison with the originals on which they
are based.
See other works by Raphael Soyer at
https://edpollackfinearts.com/cgi-bin/edp1/creator2011.html?me=253&te=2
