1974 Maurice Utrillo Collotype "Street and Open Square"

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Original collotype print after the earlier Maurice Utrillo lithograph, from the limited edition portfolio "Twenty Four Masterpieces of Graphic Art". … Read more Original collotype print after the earlier Maurice Utrillo lithograph, from the limited edition portfolio "Twenty Four Masterpieces of Graphic Art". Printed and published by Triton Press, Inc., New York in 1974. Sheet size: 17 x 14 inches; print size: 13-1/2 x 10 inches. Signed in stone lower left, on Brandywine Cover paper. Shown on a black background. Mint condition new old stock from our immaculate copy of "Twenty Four Masterpieces of Graphic Art".

Collotype is a printing process invented in the mid-19th century famous for producing extremely fine detail and rich tonal gradation, using photograph negatives to create printing plates. Widely used for art books, postcards, and fine art reproductions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, today collotype is commercially uncommon, but still practiced by a few master printers. Collotype prints are admired by photographers, printmakers, and collectors for its unmatched subtlety.

Utrillo rarely went beyond the limits of Paris, Montmartre, or the outskirts of the city for his subject matter. His models were buildings with weathered facades, paved streets, and suburban dirt roads. In this view of an open, naked square, bordered by a few stark buildings, he has proved himself once again a most sensitive poet, capable of finding dignity, beauty and a classic calm in the unseemly and the ordinary. See less