'New York, View of the East River' After Max Pollak, 1928, Paris, Metropolitan Museum, Smithsonian

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Signed lower right, 'Max Pollak' (Austrian-American, 1886-1970) with number and limitation, lower center, '21/150' and titled, lower left, 'New York: … Read more Signed lower right, 'Max Pollak' (Austrian-American, 1886-1970) with number and limitation, lower center, '21/150' and titled, lower left, 'New York: East River'. Published by Rudolph Lesch and with copyright stamp 'Corp. Rud. Lesch NY' in lower left corner. (Reference: Triton cat. 51). Paper dimensions: 13.25 x 18.5 inches.

Max Pollak achieved a reputation for the skill of his etchings as a young man living in Vienna, Austria. He is perhaps best known for his singular and penetrating portrait of Sigmund Freud (1913), which is widely reproduced. Pollak created many portraits of famous figures in Europe, and later in the United States, along with genre scenes and landscapes.

Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Max Pollak grew up in Vienna and attended the Vienna Academy of Art, where he studied with the portraitist, Ferdinand Schmutzer. An etching of Capo d'Istria in Slovenia indicates that Pollak had begun his international travels as early as 1907.

In 1910, Pollak won the Prix de Rome for his etchings, bringing him to Italy for a time. He also traveled to France and Holland between 1911 and 1914. In 1914, Pollack began a series of etchings depicting Jewish refugees in Vienna who had fled from pogroms in Russia and Bohemia.

During World War I, he served as an artist for the Austrian Army, sketching in the field and returning to Vienna to create his etchings. Works from this period include compelling images of a Carpathian Village, Italian War Prisoners, and displaced Spanish families.

By the mid 1920s, Pollak was living in Paris and creating numerous images of street scenes. During this period, the artist was commissioned to make portraits of a number of celebrated actors and dancers, including Maria Ley, Kitty Starling and Isa Marsen.

In 1927, he immigrated to the United States and lived in New York City for a few years. His work there included street scenes of the Lower East Side. A period of travel followed during which Pollak went to Europe and Palestine between 1931 and 1934. Around 1938, he moved to San Francisco, again pursuing portraiture for notable patrons such as Albert Bender, an important San Francisco patron of the arts, Dr. Leon Kolb, Stanford professor and art collector, and Superior Court Judge Max C. Sloss and his wife.

Pollak exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939 and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in 1940. He won California Society of Etchers awards in 1942, 1944, and 1945, as well as a Chicago Society of Etchers award in 1942. He continued to travel nationally—to Cincinnati, New Orleans, Chicago, and the east coast—and abroad to Guatemala and Mexico. Finally, Pollak settled in Sausalito, CA.

Max Pollak's artworks are held in a number of important collections, including the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts in San Francisco, the British Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Freud Museum in London, the Judah L. Magnes Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Oakland Museum, Princeton University, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. See less