Cobwebs (Brooklyn Bridge), 1921
signed in pencil lower right below image John Taylor Arms,
from the edition of 75,
etching on paper, 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches (plate)
Provenance:
private collection, New York City and Maine
purchased Associated American Artists, New York, 1982
ex-collection Jules Askin
Arms studied architecture at MIT and practiced as an architect for some years, until he discovered printmaking. He quickly became one of the most prominent American printmakers in the first half of the twentieth century. His work may be found in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Fogg Museum at Harvard, Art Institute of Chicago, and many more.
Arms’ “Cobwebs” is made out of thousands of microscopic lines. Early etchings in his career, like this view toward the Brooklyn Bridge in lower Manhattan, are notable because they include figures that help bring the viewer in to the scene. A human presence is notably absent in his later prints.
—from the label on this work at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.