Armin Landeck, an American realist artist whose graphic career spanned more than half of the twentieth century, was recognized for his brilliance in bringing fresh aesthetic life to the architecture of New York. Though his subjects were simple, Landeck's art is moving and powerful. He had been trained as an architect but devoted his life to etching, creating his first print in 1927. A trip to Europe in 1928 inspired a series of thirty-six drypoints and aquatints of European subjects. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Landeck created many drypoints and some lithographs, mostly of New York City but also of rural Connecticut. This revised edition of a book first published in 1977 has been completely rewritten and expanded to include prints not known when the first edition was published - plus the prints made by the artist from 1977 till his death in 1984. The first edition contained 127 prints and states; 164 prints and states are now pictured and described. An important addition to this book outlines Landeck's participation in many national print exhibitions such as those at the Library of Congress and the Society of American Etchers. Reflecting the growing appreciation of Landeck's work, the first edition's list of public institutions that have Landeck prints in their permanent collections has grown from thirty-one to ninety-six. A new section entitled "Notes on the Prints" gives in-depth information on many Landeck prints. An extensive bibliography is another new feature of this second edition.

An engaging look at early twentieth-century American printmaking, which frequently focused on the crowded, chaotic, and gritty modern city. In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of American artists influenced by the painter and teacher Robert Henri aimed to reject the pretenses of academic fine art and polite society. Embracing the democratic inclusiveness of the Progressive movement, these artists turned to making prints, which were relatively inexpensive to produce and easy to distribute. For their subject matter, the artists mined the bustling activity and stark realities of the urban centers in which they lived and worked. Their prints feature sublime towering skyscrapers and stifling city streets, jazzy dance halls and bleak tenement interiors—intimate and anonymous everyday scenes that addressed modern life in America. True Grit examines a rich selection of prints by well-known figures like George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Joseph Pennell, and John Sloan as well as lesser-known artists such as Ida Abelman, Peggy Bacon, Miguel Covarrubias, and Mabel Dwight. Written by three scholars of printmaking and American art, the essays present nuanced discussions of gender, class, literature, and politics, contextualizing the prints in the rapidly changing milieu of the first decades of twentieth-century America.