John Taylor Arms Ww2 Etching Us Navy Battleship at Shipyard Signed 1944

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Original signed etching by John Taylor Arms (American, 1887 to 1953), a major figure in the twentieth-century American etching revival … Read more Original signed etching by John Taylor Arms (American, 1887 to 1953), a major figure in the twentieth-century American etching revival and president of the American Society of Graphic Artists. From the artist's celebrated World War II Navy Series, commissioned by the US Navy Bureau of Ships to document American shipyard production for the war effort. The print depicts a US Navy battleship in Measure 32 dazzle camouflage at her fitting out berth, with a colossal gantry crane towering over the foredeck, a triple sixteen-inch main turret battery visible amidships, and the great hull's reflection rippling in the still basin water. Rendered in Arms's hallmark ultra-fine line technique, achieved with sewing needles and a magnifying glass, every rivet, cable, and crane truss bristles with photographic precision. Pencil signed and titled by the artist in the lower right margin. Personally inscribed by Arms in pencil in the lower left margin to "my friend Otto Torrington, naval officer US Navy," from "John Taylor Arms, ex naval officer US Navy retired, 1944." This is a fellow naval officer to fellow naval officer presentation copy. Arms himself served as a US Navy officer in World War I.
Sheet 18.5 by 12.75 inches, mat 24 by 19 inches. See less