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(American, 1892–1973)

Minneapolis

1925
Lithograph on off-white wove paper
Image: 11 5/8 x 8 7/8 in. (29.5 x 22.5 cm)
Sheet: 14 1/2 x 11 in. (36.8 x 27.9 cm)
Mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Credit LineTerra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number1995.9
SignedIn graphite, lower right: Louis Lozowick '25; in image, lower right: [artist's monogram]
Interpretation
Louis Lozowick's lithograph Minneapolis presents a composite of the Midwestern city's various structural geometries. Rhythmic harmonies of dark and lighter gray shaded forms convey the essence of Minneapolis through its most characteristic forms: cylindrical grain silos and warehouses, monumental rectilinear factories, an arched bridge, and railroad yards. Their simplified volumes seem to explode upward from the bottom center of the composition to capture the overwhelming scale of the city's industrial environment and, by implication, its regional might as a center for flour milling, lumber processing, and shipping in the heart of America's upper Midwest.

After studying at the National Academy of Art in New York and at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, Lozowick joined the army, which provided him with an opportunity to travel around the United States, in 1919. One of the major cities he visited was Minneapolis, which some seven years later inspired a painting (Minneapolis, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.) and this related print for his series portraying America's modern cities; another lithograph in the series depicts New York (TF 1995.10). In an era when artists were irresistibly drawn to New York as the quintessential modern metropolis, epitomized in its glamorous downtown skyscrapers, as for example in Howard Cook's Skyscraper (TF 1995.28), Lozowick's equal attention to other American cities was unusual. Portraying Minneapolis in terms of its own indigenous architecture and the industrial structures of its dominant economic engines, Lozowick celebrated this city's unique character and its strong roots in the surrounding vast agricultural region. 
ProvenanceThe artist
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1995
Exhibition History
Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1999–May 7, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 2004.

Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape.  Terra Foundation  for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Loyola University Museum of Art,  May 17–August 10, 2008. [exh. cat.]

America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper, Terra Foundation for American Art and the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, UK (organizers.) Venue: Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, UK, March 23, 2018–July 22, 2018 [exh. cat.]

Published References
Flint, Janet A. Louis Lozowick: Drawings and Lithographs. (exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1975. Cat. no. 26.

Flint, Janet A. with foreword by Alfred P. Maurice. The Prints of Louis Lozowick: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1982. Text p. 54; ill. no. 5, p. 54.

Lithographs of Louis Lozowick (1892–1973) . (exh. cat., Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.). New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., 1986. Cat. no. 2.

American Modernist Prints: 1900–1945. New York: Susan Sheehan, Inc., 1987. Ill. no. 37.

Louis Lozowick: A Centennial Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints. (exh. cat., Associated American Artists). New York: Associated American Artists, 1992. Text p. 15 (checklist); ill. no. 1, p. 13 (black & white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Ill. no. 8, p. 66 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Ill. no. 8, p. 66 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]

Brownlee, Peter John. Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008. Text p. 36 (checklist).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., Lauren Kroiz, and Leo G. Mazow. America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper. Oxford, United Kingdom: Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology–University of Oxford, 2018. Ill. pp. 46, 146, cat. no. 49 (color).