Essay
In 1937, soon after returning from Connecticut to New York City, Martin Lewis created Day’s End Study as a preparation for his drypoint Day’s End, a print from the same year. Both of these images portray an industrial scene of workers returning home at the end of the day from their factory jobs. The figures are moving down a sidewalk on the right side of a street, which is lined with parked cars and buildings. The scene is made to feel industrial by the numerous sets of power lines crisscrossing over the top half of the image, as well as the smokestacks rising out of the buildings on either side of the street. However, Lewis still incorporates more natural elements into the drawing by including a grove of trees in the background, presumably at the end of the block. While many of the details of Day’s End Study are unclear, due to the sketchy nature of the piece, the finished print, Day’s End, provides more clues as to what Lewis hopes to represent. For example, the smokestack closest to the foreground of the image, which is blank in the charcoal drawing, reads “Danbury & Bethel Fur Co Inc” in the drypoint, making the scene much more specific (McCarron 208). However, because Day’s End Study is a simpler portrayal, it provides insight into which elements of the image Lewis may have considered to be most important. For example, Lewis used white chalk to portray light reflecting onto the side of the two buildings on the right side of the image. This element is carried over into Day’s End and helps not only to highlight the buildings but also to bring focus to the dark figures walking in front of them.
As Thomas Bruhn, Curator of Collections at the William Benton Museum of Art, suggests, “light predominates in Martin Lewis’ prints and is the creating force in the best of them” (Bruhn 8). Lewis often uses very angled lighting to play up shadows and contrasting tones. For example, one of the main focuses of Trumbull Street, another of Lewis’ prints in the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College Art Collection, is the play of window light on a dark rainy street (McCarron 192). Because Day’s End Study is set at dusk, the light in the scene is especially varied, as it is bright on the buildings and sky above, but shadowed across the street and on the trees at the end of the block. These variations are even more noticeable in the print version, Day’s End, as the shadows and highlights are more developed. While many of the figures in Day’s End Study are represented with simple outlines, Lewis has still managed to incorporate multiple themes into the image. For example, the factory and workers bring up issues of labor and industry, while the grove of trees in the background still incorporates the natural beauty that is so important in much of Lewis’ work, and the evening light shows an exploration of tonal variations and shadow.
Although Lewis was active in a socialist and pacifist crowd, few of his images express such ideologies. Rather, many of Lewis’ prints seem to highlight the natural beauty of everyday scenes. Day’s End Study, while still showcasing elements of natural beauty and lighting, could be considered an exception, as its representation of factory workers in a factory neighborhood might be interpreted as pro-labor. While many of Lewis’ prints showcase people during leisure time, such as Strength and Beauty, a beach scene also from 1937, Day’s End Study brings beauty into what otherwise could be considered the mundane experience of people traveling home from work (McCarron 209). After all, the drawing was created in the midst of the Great Depression, during which Lewis himself had been forced to find work in a factory. Thus, Lewis likely viewed factory work as an important and valuable part of city life, which in this scene is made more bearable by groves of urban trees and the glowing light of the sky at dusk, which draws the viewer’s eye up and could be seen as lifting the spirits of the workers returning home.
Day’s End Study could also be seen as a visual representation of Lewis’ own return to city life, as it was drawn just a year after he and his family returned from Connecticut. Some of his prints created just a year or two before, such as Angry Man, from 1935, depict country scenes, whereas Day’s End Study and its accompanying print Day’s End were created just as Lewis was returning to the use of city imagery in his work (McCarron 197). These images, and many others, make Lewis’ fascination with cities, and more specifically New York City, clear. Robert Henning, chief curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art suggests, “Lewis obviously found in the buildings, the streets, and the people of New York City settings and subjects to express his own fascination with the momentary qualities of city life which he rendered with compassion and affection” (Henning 7). Henning further suggests that Lewis considered the city to be “a focal point of human activity” where elements such as light and weather could interact most dramatically with their environments (Henning 7). Trumbull Street, while cited as being in Hartford, Connecticut, was almost certainly done in New York, and is a perfect example of how, as Henning suggests, Lewis used cityscapes to play with the natural elements, in this case rain and light (McCarron 192). Day’s End Study also showcases light in a manner that would not be as successful in a country scene. The buildings provide sharp contrast by cutting off the light and allowing certain elements of the scene to be bathed in light while others fade into shadow. Many of Martin Lewis’ main interests as an artist are present as themes in Day’s End Study. While Lewis clearly held a deep interest in New York City and city life in general, he also explored natural themes. Consequently, rather than simply portraying city life, Day’s End Study does so without sacrificing the natural elements provided by the evening light and background trees. Light is a pervasive theme in this drawing. Although the image depicts a scene at dusk, the sky is brightly lit by the use of white chalk. Such light gives the scene an optimistic mood, which could offer insight into Lewis’ own view of factory work and the beauty he saw in it. As a study rather than a final print, Lewis has put special emphasis on the tonal variations in Day’s End Study, showing how important the lighting is to the scene. Day’s End Study also has an unfinished, sketchy quality that is not present in Lewis’ completed prints, making this drawing an especially interesting representation of his artwork. Day’s End Study was created at an eventful time, not only in Lewis’ life but also in American history. The Lewis family had just moved back to New York City, and Martin Lewis was just returning to his much beloved city subjects. The United States was struggling in the midst of the Depression, and industry had an important role in American culture. Both his personal life and American life clearly factored into Lewis’ depiction of the city scene in Day’s End Study.
-S.L.
Sources
Bruhn, Thomas P. The Graphic Work of Martin Lewis. Storrs, CT: The William
Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut Storrs, 1978. Print.
Henning, Robert. New York, New York! The Prints & Drawings of Martin Lewis
& Armin Landeck. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1984. Print.
McCarron, Paul. The Prints of Martin Lewis: A Catalogue Raisonné.
Bronxville, NY: M. Hausberg, 1995. Print.
Biography
self portrait
Though born in Australia in 1881, Martin Lewis was living in New York City by the time he was twenty, and it was there that he began his career as a printmaker. Dissatisfied with Australia and its “transplanted English” culture, Lewis left home at the age of fifteen, traveled around Australia and New Zealand, immigrated to San Francisco and finally landed in New York (McCarron 4). Once in the States, Lewis supported himself as a commercial artist. During this first period in New York, Lewis was part of a group of mostly writers, including Jack London and Emma Goldman, centered on the revolutionary feminist and socialist poet Lola Ridge and her husband David Lawson (McCarron 6). As a member of this group, Lewis found support for his long held socialist and pacifist views. However, in 1920, after ending a ten-year relationship, Lewis found an interest in Japanese art and landscape and left New York for Japan. He was drawn to Japan because it held a sense of beauty and an aesthetic that he felt America lacked. While there, Lewis developed a more realistic way of portraying nature and landscapes and gained a deep regard for natural beauty (McCarron 14). Lewis spent most of his time in Japan living and working in the countryside before returning to New York less than two years later, likely due to his inability to master the language or to support himself (McCarron 7).
Once back in New York, Lewis rejoined a cultured crowd, and despite his tenth-grade education, he took a critical interest in art, literature and drama (McCarron 8). However, Lewis returned to commercial art and did not take printmaking up again until 1925. In 1927, he was given his first solo exhibition, and within a few years he had become both critically and commercially highly successful, allowing him to quit commercial work. When the Depression hit, Lewis and his wife Lucile sold their properties in New York and moved to Connecticut, and due to both the Depression and the oncoming war, Lewis was forced to take up periodic work in a factory (McCarron 8-9). Though they were surrounded by artists and writers in Connecticut, Lewis did not like country life, and in 1936, despite their continued financial struggles, the Lewis family returned to New York. Soon after their return, Lewis created Day’s End Study. However, Lewis’ career never fully recovered, and he turned to a teaching job at the Art Students League of New York for support (McCarron 9). In 1952, he was forced to retire due to a heart condition, and in 1962, Lewis passed away after a heart attack.
-S.L.
Sources
McCarron, Paul. The Prints of Martin Lewis: A Catalogue Raisonné.
Bronxville, NY: M. Hausberg, 1995. Print.
