Storm Landscape with Railroad Tracks

Landscape

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 24.8 x 34.0 cm
Support Dimensions: 29.0 x 40.2 cm

Believed to have been done in the late 1920’s, this lithograph by American modernist artist Charles James Martin showing a stormy landscape bisected in the middle with railroad tracks may have been done somewhere on Cape Cod, in the US state of Massachusetts.

From Martin’s Wikipedia page, we learn:

Martin spent many summers in the 1920s–50s living and teaching plein air art classes in Provincetown, Mass,[7] and also in Mexico.[8] Martin continued working as an art instructor, often on a freelance basis, for the remainder of his life. He died on August 9, 1955 in Hyannis, MA, after a short illness. He is buried at North Burial Ground, Providence, Rhode Island.[9]

American artist Charles James Martin (1886-1955) studied with Arthur Wesley Dow, and later taught alongside him at Columbia University Teachers College. At TC, he also studied photography with Clarence H. White, and became an instructor at White’s School of Photography in 1918. Martin began teaching at the Art Students League of New York in 1921. The following background on Martin and his involvement with the White school appeared in the February, 1921 issue of “The Touchstone and the American Art Student Magazine”:

“The Clarence H. White School of Photography announces a course of instruction in Print Making by Prof. Charles J. Martin of the Department of Fine Arts, Columbia University. The purpose of the course is to develop an appreciation of prints through a study of fine examples and particularly through practice in etching plates, cutting blocks and printing. There will be also an opportunity to do photo-engraving such as the line cut and photogravure. The course will consist of twenty sessions. The earlier sessions are now under way, and the response to this announcement gives evidence that the student of the Photographic Arts is endeavoring to gain practical knowledge as well as artistic reproduction.” (p. 406)

print notes: signed in graphite at lower right corner outside of image: Charles J Martin; 11 written in graphite on lower left corner of print recto; corner adhesive remnants to top margin of print verso; title devised by this website.

provenance: acquired by PhotoSeed 2013 from California heir to the Charles James Martin estate.