CATALOGUE OF ETCHINGS OF LEVON WEST

New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1930. No. 115 OF 150 DE LUXE COPIES (there were also 810 regular copies). 306 x 226 mm. (12 x 9"). [44] leaves.Compiled by Otto M. Torrington, with an introduction by Elisabeth Luther Cary.
Publisher's brown boards backed with vellum, flat spine with red morocco label, edges untrimmed. In the (slightly worn) original cardboard slipcase. With 125 reproductions of West's etchings, and WITH AN ORIGINAL ETCHING as the frontispiece, SIGNED BY THE ARTIST. ◆Faint smudge on upper board, light offsetting from images, but A FINE COPY with virtually no signs of use.

Born in South Dakota, Levon West (1900-68) was a precociously talented artist who abandoned a Harvard business education to become an etcher. West learned his craft from the eminent artist and draughtsman Joseph Pennell, and gained overnight success when the New York Times published his etching of Charles Lindburgh's airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, the day after its successful transatlantic flight. The present work was published when the artist was just 30 years old and includes etchings of his time in Spain, portraits, wonderful images of the American West, and sailboats, as well as the image that made him famous..