Malvin Marr (Zsissly) Albright

Lobsterman's Wharf, Maine (Edition of 250), 1946
lithograph in black on wove paper
9.63 x 13 in
SKU: 10705g
$2,499
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'Lobsterman's Wharf, Maine' is an original lithograph signed by Malvin Marr "Zsissly" Albright. While Malvin Marr – along with his better-known identical twin Ivan Albright – was known for his meticulous and unsettling magic realist compositions, he and his brother were also prolific in capturing landscapes of the coast of Maine where the two spent several consecutive summers away from Chicago over their lives. Sometimes these Maine landscapes and views would be painterly and seemingly antithetical to the careful realism of his other work; but in this example, however, the wharf is treated with the same macabre decay as his human subjects. In the composition, the shack in the foreground leans and seems to creak in the wind. Two figures, each as aged and gray as the shack itself, indicate the long hard work of fishing and trapping lobsters.

This image may have been one of Malvin Marr's most widely seen: it is based on a painting of the same year, which was used as an ad for Maxwell Coffee House, which described the image as a little village with "large horizons looking out to the sea. All up and down our long coastline their salty, sunbleached, windswept charm is a picturesque part of the American Scene."

lithograph in black on wove paper
from the edition of 250
9 5/8 x 13 inches, image
12 1/8 x 17 inches, sheet
18 3/4 x 22 inches, frame

Signed in the stone, lower right
Signed in pencil, lower left
Published by Associated American Artists

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