Early 20th Century Santo Domingo Landscape Etching Proof by George Overbury Hart

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Prize winning 1923 Dry Point Etching of Santo Domingo by George "Pop" Hart.

Wonderful early 20th century modern etching of … Read more Prize winning 1923 Dry Point Etching of Santo Domingo by George "Pop" Hart.

Wonderful early 20th century modern etching of the Santo Domingo, capital of Dominican Republic by George Overbury "Pop" Hart (American 1868 - 1933). He entered this dry point etching "proof" to the Brooklyn Society of Etchers in 1924 winning a prize. This landscape went to become a limited series of 50 titled "A Bit of Santo Domingo" which depicts a quiet, rural hilltop town with a mother holding a child in front of her straw-roofed home with another figure riding into town on a donkey. More houses and figures in the hilly background create depth and interest to this genre landscape.

Medium: Dry Point etching on soft ground on paper
Signature: Signed in pencil lower right edge "Pop _ Hart"
Annotation: "Awarded prize 1923 - 4 Brooklyn So. of Etchers on this proof"
Paper size: 7 1/8"H x 11 3/8"W
Image size: 5 7/8"H x 8 7/8"W
Mat size: 15"H x 20"W



George Overbury Hart was born in Cairo, Illinois, the eldest of four children, and raised in Rochester, New York. His father managed a printing roller factory, and Hart worked there for a time in his teens but lost the job due to an explosion that took place when he was off sketching instead of watching the glue vats. Around the age of 18, he went to London on a cattle boat and while in England became an itinerant sign painter to support himself. Eventually he landed in Chicago, where he worked for a while as an illustrator for a newspaper and also as a sign painter for the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and other clients. Although Hart was initially self-taught, in the 1890s he attended the Chicago Art Institute on and off for several years, and in 1907 he spent a year at the Académie Julien in Paris.

For the first few years of the 20th century, Hart traveled all over the world: to Mexico, Central America, North Africa, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific, where he visited Tahiti in 1903, shortly after the death of Gauguin. Following his 1907 studies in Paris, he supported himself for about five years by working as a sign painter around New York City, and then he worked for most of a decade painting sets for the nascent film industry in New Jersey. He set up a studio in Coytesville, a neighborhood in Fort Lee, New Jersey, but he spent much of the 1920s traveling again.

Hart is said to have acquired his nickname of "Pop" after growing a beard during one of his many trips, and thereafter many of his works appear with the signature "Pop Hart". He died in 1933 in Coytesville, where he had lived in poor health during his last years.

Exhibitions:
Cannell & Chaffin (LA), 1923
California Print Makers Society, 1927
California Watercolor Society, 1927
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1927
Nicholson Gallery (Pasadena), 1927
Biltmore Salon (LA), 1929
Braxton Gallery (LA), 1931
Pasadena Art Inst., 1932
Zeitlin Gallery (LA), 1937 See less