Studio Interior No. 1

Armin Landeck's precisely detailed Studio Interior No. 1 displays the full range of accoutrements crowding a printmaker's workspace. Prominent in the foreground is his intaglio press, which he used to print his own proof impressions and editions. At left, the artist's desk, where he made drawings on paper and images on copper plates, stands beneath a window from which the direct light is softened by a tilted screen of etched glass. Notwithstanding the rigid orderliness of the workspace, active use is intimated by the desk's two gaping drawers and the corresponding open door of the print cabinet beyond, with its shallow shelves for storing printed impressions and supplies of fresh paper. Cropped at the upper right, a framed image resembles several of the sweeping vistas of Manhattan that Landeck made in the early 1930s, although it does not exactly correspond with any particular known print by him. At the far right, the upright back of an easel echoes the diagonal of the window screen, playing off the more oblique slant of the handle of the printing press. Visually encircled by the wheel of the press, the homey, old-fashioned form of a pot-bellied stove is almost lost at the center of the scene. The stove chimney, however, offers a firm vertical line to counter the horizontal surfaces of desk, bench, cabinet, table and press "bed."

The setting of Studio Interior No. 1 is the converted granary that served as Landeck's studio where he lived during weekends and summers in northwestern Connecticut, beginning in 1930. Landeck's image does more than record his everyday surroundings. His careful juxtaposition of the forms of furniture and equipment, approached in the manner of a still-life arrangement seen from above, emphasizes the abstract relationships of geometric solids and voids, described in black, white, and uniformly textured tones of gray. Exploiting the sensitivity of drypoint, long one of his favorite print media, Landeck rendered the subtle range of tonalities of each item in his studio by means of methodically drawn fine meshes of straight parallel lines. His method demanded extremely careful inking of the plate. For the darkest areas, he made deeper lines to hold more ink, while the lightest areas are virtually unprinted. The resulting print captures in its technique as well as its subject matter the artist's pride in his work and affection for his tools. Like the almost contemporary print The Press (TF 1996.30) by Paul Landacre, Studio Interior No. 1 celebrates printmaking through its instruments. It is one of several prints of studio interiors that Landeck made in the mid-1930s.

On Process: Studio Themes, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 4, 2001.

Atelier 17: Modern Printmaking in the Americas (Atelier 17: Gravura moderna nas Américas, Museu De Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP) and Terra Foundation for American Art (organizer). Venue: Museu De Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP), March 23–June 2, 2019. [exh. cat.]

Kraeft, June and Norman. Armin Landeck: The Catalog Raisonné of His Prints. Bethlehem, Connecticut: June 1 Gallery, 1977. No. 57, p. 91.

Armin Landeck, 1905–1984: A Memorial Exhibition. (exh. cat., Associated American Artists). New York: Associated American Artists, 1985. Ill. no. 12, p. 4 (black & white).

Kraeft, June and Norman Kraeft. Armin Landeck: The Catalogue Raisonné of His Prints. Rev. ed. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. K. 57, p. 91 (black & white).

Rossetti de Toledo, Carolina, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, and Peter John Brownlee. Atelier 17 e a gravura moderna nas Americas / Atelier 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas. (exh. cat., Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo). São Paulo, Brazil: 2019. Text pp. 242–243; ill. p. 241 (color).