Armin Landeck

A skilled printmaker as well as painter, Armin Landeck specialized in New York City views, scenes of rural Connecticut and architectural compositions in striking black and white. Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, Landeck first encountered art at the Toledo Museum of Art. In 1925, after two years of study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, he went to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League. He then transferred to Columbia University, where he graduated with an architecture degree in 1927. That year, he was inspired to make his first etching after encountering prints in museums and art galleries. In 1928, Landeck toured Europe with his wife, Beatrice Boerum, who had also studied architecture. In Nuremberg, Germany, Landeck spent several months at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Arts and Crafts School), where he mastered intaglio techniques and made several etchings based on European scenes.

Returning to New York in 1929, when jobs in architecture were scarce, Landeck embarked on printmaking as his career. In 1930, the Landecks purchased a property near Cornwall, Connecticut, where the artist spent weekends and summers while maintaining a weekday residence in New York City. In the early 1930s, he made spectacular lithographs of Manhattan views, which were printed by master lithographer George C. Miller. Miller introduced Landeck to etcher Martin Lewis, and in 1934 the three men established their School for Printmakers. Although the Depression economy forced the school to close after only a few months, Landeck and Lewis remained close friends.