Adolf Dehn (1895–1968), American painter in multimedia and acclaimed master lithographer, left his Minnesota hometown after formal training at the Minneapolis Art Institute to study at the Art Students League in New York. He toured Europe in the early 1920s, quickly acclimating to the continental lifestyle and adeptly depicting its nuances and idiosyncrasies with prolific lithographs and sketches. His critical and satirical renderings of the political movements, social conventions, and governmental policies in post–World War I Europe during “Le Crazy Years” gave the Midwestern artist ample material for his growing body of work. Sailing back to the United States in 1929, Dehn survived the Great Depression with commercial artwork and contributions to popular magazines such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. His clever drawings that reflected the Jazz Age’s culture and fashionable society made him a favorite of Frank Crowninshield, Vanity Fair’s renowned editor. During this time, while Dehn captured the heyday of Manhattan’s burlesque theaters, lively Harlem nightclubs, impressive skyline, and busy harbor, he was continuously drawn to Central Park—his predilection for the city’s magnificent green space was a sustaining source of inspiration and subject matter. Adolf Dehn: Midcentury Manhattan candidly examines the life and work of this exceptional, adventurous, and intrepid artist as he moved skillfully and capably between lithography, ink-wash drawings, gouache, casein painting, and watercolors. Combining numerous vintage photographs with newly discovered, Manhattan-inspired prints and drawings from the collections of, among others, the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Adolf Dehn: Midcentury Manhattan traces how Dehn’s art reflected the spirit, pulse, and uniquely American tonalities of The City of Dreams.

For many, the name Richard Segalman conjures up a vision of light-infused paintings of women gathered on a beach, gazing out the window of a New York City brownstone, or dressed in costumes from another era. But just as Edgar Degas, approaching his 60th year, surprised gallery goers with an exhibition not of ballerinas or race horses, but of highly atmospheric monotype landscapes, so too does Segalman surprise us with this exceptional collection of monotypes he began to produce in 1993, at nearly 60. “I reached a sort of a plateau and needed a new direction,” says the artist. “I came across a monotype… took a course… made one and I was hooked.” The significance of Segalman’s shift into this medium is most powerfully conveyed through his arresting black-and-white prints that range from anonymous crowds on Coney Island beaches or New York City streets to a solitary figure in private contemplation. This monochromatic focus makes perfect sense: Segalman’s first gallery appearance in New York—a sold-out show that gave him the courage to embrace the life of an artist—consisted entirely of black-and-white charcoal drawings, several stunning examples of which open this book. Currently, Segalman’s work can be found in many public and private collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Author Susan F. Castle’s essay about the artist and his muses—the people, places, and things for which Richard Segalman has an abiding love—illuminates the exceptional work collected for this monograph. She combines excerpts from interviews with the artist and the three master printmakers with whom he has worked in Woodstock and Brooklyn, New York, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition, Anthony Kirk’s insightful introduction provides an essential historical perspective on the artist and his printmaking process.