Harlem Beauty (Negress, Negro Girl, Black Girl)- 1930, Woodcut.

Rose III.42. Edition 30 (a proof impression apart from the numbered edition). Signed, dated, and titled Negress in pencil.

Image size 11 3/8 x 9 3/8 inches (289 x 238 mm); sheet size 16 1/4 x 12 3/8 inches (413 x 314 mm).

A fine richly inked impression, on cream wove Japan; the full sheet with margins (1 1/8 to 3 1/8 inches); slight toning in the margins, away from the image, otherwise in excellent condition. Scarce.

Exhibited and reproduced: Fifty Prints of the Year, American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1931-32. Selected by Lewis Mumford from nearly 1000 graphic submissions.

Collections: Ackland Art Museum (NC), Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design (Berlin), Honolulu Academy of Arts, National Gallery of Art (Washington), Newark Public Library, New York Public Library, Princeton University Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

SOLD

Harlem River- 1930, Woodcut.

Rose III.44. Edition 20. Signed, titled, dated and numbered IV in pencil.

Image size 7 13/16 x 11 9/16 inches (198 x 292 mm); sheet size 10 1/2 x 15 1/4 inches (267 x 387 mm).

A fine, black impression, on handmade cream laid Japan, with full margins (1 to 1 7/8 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Featured with a full page illustration in the Drewes catalogue raisonné, p.109.

Collections: New York Public Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$2500.

Skyscrapers- 1930, Woodcut.

Rose III.48. Edition 20. Signed, dated, and numbered I-XXX in pencil.

Image size 13 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches (340 x 213 mm); sheet size 15 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches (387 x 273 mm).

A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove Japan paper, the full sheet with margins (3/4 to 1 1/8 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Collections: Ackland Art Museum, Bauhaus-Archiv (Berlin), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$2500.

In Front of the New York Public Library; At the Library; New York Public Library- 1931, Woodcut.

Rose III.51. Edition 20; 2nd state. Signed, titled N.Y. At the Library, dated and numbered I-XX in pencil.

Image size 11 3/8 x 8 1/2 inches (289 x 216 mm); sheet size 19 7/8 x 14 inches (505 x 356 mm).

A fine, black impression, on handmade cream laid Japan, with full margins (2 3/4 to 5 3/8 inches), in excellent condition.

Collections: New York Public Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

SOLD

New Towers- 1931, Woodcut.

Rose III.58. Edition 20; 3rd state of three. Unsigned; the artist’s name in blue ink, by another hand, in the bottom left margin.

11 5/8 x 8 1/8 inches (295 x 206 mm); sheet size 15 1/4 x 11 inches (387 x 279 mm).

A fine, black impression, on handmade, fibrous, cream laid Japan, with full margins (1 3/8 to 2 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Collections: New York Public Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$1800.

New Rochelle - Before the Wind - 1931, Drypoint.

Rose I.163. Edition 30—only a few impressions printed. Signed, dated 1932 and numbered I-XXX in pencil.

Image size 13 7/8 x 10 7/8 inches (352 x 276 mm); sheet size 16 1/2 x 12 5/8 inches (419 x 322 mm).

A superb, richly inked impression, in dark brown ink, with pronounced burr throughout; on buff wove Japan, with full margins, in excellent condition. Very scarce.

Collections: Honolulu Academy of Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$1600.

Self Portrait - 1932, Woodcut.

Rose III.78. Edition 30. Signed, dated and numbered I-XXX in pencil. Titled, dated, and numbered No 76 in pencil, in the lower left sheet corner.

Image size 16 x 11 1/2 inches (406 x 292 mm); sheet size 20 x 14 1/4 inches (508 x 362 mm).

A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove Japan paper, the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 2 3/8 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Collections: New York Public Library, Princeton Art Museum, Princeton University Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$1200.

It Can't Happen Here - 1934, Linocut.

Rose III.97. Edition 35 (20 copies used for the portfolio cover). Signed, dated, and numbered I-XXXV in pencil.

Image size 6 1/16 x 10 1/4 inches (154 x 260 mm); sheet size 7 3/4 x 10 7/8 inches (197 x 276 mm).

A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream laid Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (1/4 to 7/8 inch), in very good condition.

Cover image for Drewes' portfolio of 10 woodcuts titled It Can’t Happen Here (Rose III 87-96), printed and published by the artist in 1934.

"The 10 woodcuts in the portfolio were among the earliest purely abstract compositions produced by an artist working in America. The linocut for the portfolio cover, however, makes reference to a distorted swastika. Drewes's emphatic use of an abstract idiom would have held a particular significance when the portfolio was published. In his native Germany such works were being branded as 'entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art) by the Nazis, and Drewes's use of abstraction signified a deeper resistance to the totalitarianism engulfing Europe in the 1930s.”
—Stephen Coppel, The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, The British Museum Press, 2008.

Collections: Brooklyn Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery.

SOLD

Composition VII - Two Large Fighting Forms and a Row of Small Forms, (Abstraction No. 7)- 1934, Woodcut.

Rose III.93. Edition 20, a proof impression apart from the published edition. Signed, dated and titled Abstraction No. 7 in pencil.

Image size 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (241 x 318 mm); sheet size 13 x 18 1/4 inches (330 x 464mm).

A fine, painterly impression with the background in, on off-white wove Japan, with full margins (1 1/8 to 3 1/8 inches). Minor surface soiling in the margins, otherwise in excellent condition. A very scarce, possibly unique proof impression, with the upper background in variegated black (the final state was solid black) and with the working title Abstraction No. 7 in the artist's hand.

Number 7 in a portfolio of 10 woodcuts titled It Can’t Happen Here, (Rose III 87-96), printed and published by the artist in 1934. Featured with a full page illustration in the Drewes catalogue raisonné, p.119.

Literature: American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection, The Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987.

"The 10 woodcuts in the portfolio were among the earliest purely abstract compositions produced by an artist working in America. The linocut for the portfolio cover, however, makes reference to a distorted swastika. Drewes's emphatic use of an abstract idiom would have held a particular significance when the portfolio was published. In his native Germany such works were being branded as 'entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art) by the Nazis, and Drewes's use of abstraction signified a deeper resistance to the totalitarianism engulfing Europe in the 1930s.”
—Stephen Coppel, The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, The British Museum Press, 2008.

Collections: Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design (Berlin), Brooklyn Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery.

SOLD

Composition IX - Crescents- 1934, Woodcut.

Rose III.95. Edition 20. Signed, dated and numbered 17/20 in pencil.

Image size 11 3/8 x 8 3/4 inches (289 x 222 mm); sheet size 15 x 10 3/4 inches (381 x 273 mm).

A fine, painterly impression with rich blacks, on off-white wove Japan, with full margins (1 to 2 1/2 inches). Minor surface soiling in the margins, otherwise in good condition. Scarce.

Number 9 in a portfolio of 10 woodcuts titled It Can’t Happen Here, (Rose III 87-96), printed and published by the artist in 1934. Featured with a full page illustration in the Drewes catalogue raisonné, p.121.

"The 10 woodcuts in the portfolio were among the earliest purely abstract compositions produced by an artist working in America. The linocut for the portfolio cover, however, makes reference to a distorted swastika. Drewes's emphatic use of an abstract idiom would have held a particular significance when the portfolio was published. In his native Germany such works were being branded as 'entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art) by the Nazis, and Drewes's use of abstraction signified a deeper resistance to the totalitarianism engulfing Europe in the 1930s.”
—Stephen Coppel, The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, The British Museum Press, 2008.

Collections: Brooklyn Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery.

$4500.

Small Forms on Crossing Bands- 1935, Drypoint and Roulette.

Rose I.197. Edition 20. Signed in pencil.

Image size7 1/8 x 10 1/2 inches (181 x 267 mm); sheet size 9 3/8 x 12 1/2 inches (238 x 318 mm).

A fine, rich impression, in warm black ink, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 to 1 3/16 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$2800.

Pointed Shapes and Black Half Moon- 1935, Etching.

Rose I.198. Edition 20. Signed, dated and numbered I-XX in pencil.

Image size 6 x 8 7/8 inches (152 x 225 mm); sheet size 8 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (222 x 298 mm).

A fine, rich impression, in black ink, with full margins (1 1/4 to 1 5/8 inches), on cream Japan. Scarce.

Reproduced: American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection, The Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987.

Collections: National Gallery of Art (Washington), Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$3400.

Opposed- 1945, Color Woodcut.

Rose III.131. Edition 20. Signed, dated and annotated Pr 1 in pencil.

Image size 9 9/16 x 15 1/16 inches (243 x 383 mm); sheet size 12 x 17 3/4 inches (305 x 451 mm).

A fine impression, on cream wove Japan, with full margins (3/4 to 1 7/8 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Collections: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$2800.

Twin Formation in Gray- 1982, Color Woodcut.

Rose III.400. Edition 30. Signed, dated and numbered I7/XXX in pencil. Annotated 415 and titled in pencil, in the bottom left sheet edge.

Image size 9 1/8 x 17 7/8 inches (232 x 454 mm); sheet size 14 5/8 x 21 5/8 inches (371 x 549 mm).

A fine impression, with fresh colors, on heavy off-white Japan; full margins (1 3/4 to 3 1/4 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce.

Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

$1800.