"Diamond Merchant" by Marian Lerer, Amer., (1928-2017) Aquatint

"Diamond Merchant" by Marian Lerer, Amer., (1928-2017) AquatintLithograph, Ca. 1950's, Ed. unknown, 12 3 16 x 8 3 16, unsigned, on cream wove paper. As with her print "Treegob's Variety", Marian Lerer here explores the "stage and actors" on which the wheels of local commerce turn, and this diamond merchant may have been a local neighborhood fixture in Philadelphia observed by Lerer while growing up. Regardless, it is a striking image, devoid of comedic elements, with it's formidible, stoic subject, fixing us with

Gouache on thick watercolor paper

Excited by an exhibit of French etchings at the 1893 World Colombian Exposition in Chicago

A visit to her home is to walk straight into her prints

There are two thin strips of masking tape at the ample top margin edge

Steve Wheeler

especially the procreative generative force we share in common with every other living thing on our planet

before the monogrammed signature in the plate upper right

A bold early print by the artist

from the portfolio Paris Capital

is best known as the inventor of Solar Plate Etching

and illustrated as pl

titled and dated 1926 in the plate