1894-1977
Sacred Bridge of Nikko
etching, signed in pencil, A. Schutz, printer's notations and title inscribed in pencil on the bottom margin, 562 Sacred Bridge of Nikko, ca. 1929
image 8 7/8 by 11 3/4 in., 22.5 by 30 cm
sheet 14 by 18 7/9 in., 35.5 by 47.8 cm
Born in Berndorf, Rhineland Germany in 1894, Anton Friedrich Joseph Schutz enrolled at the University of Munich in 1912 before serving in the German army on the Western and Eastern fronts from 1914-1918. After the war, he graduated from the University of Munich with a degree in architecture and then was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Art in 1919 where he completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Architecture in 1920. He became well-known for his etchings of German landscapes and cityscapes before immigrating in 1924 to the United States where he settled in the New York and worked as an assistant to the prominent etcher and lithographer, Joseph Pennell (1857-1926), at the Art Students League. In the same year as his arrival, Schutz held his first solo exhibition at the Anderson Gallery. The following year he founded the New York Graphic Society (which would become the world's largest publisher of fine art reproductions and was acquired by Time-Life Books in 1966) and landed commissions from the US chamber of Commerce to produce 12 etchings celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam as well as a series of etchings for the New York Times Magazine. More major commissions followed; in 1928 the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published 40 Schutz etchings, and in the same year, a New York Times commission etchings of Moscow, China and Japan. He was best known for his architecturally compelling images of New York and other cityscapes. Most of his etching plates were cancelled and donated as scrap metal to the war effort in 1940. The New York Times announced his passing in 1977 with an obituary, the headline noting he was "Well Known for Etchings."
Four of the etchings of Tokyo subjects that Schutz produced from his trip to Japan were published in the December 8, 1929 issue of The New York Times Magazine accompanying an article by Hugh Byas on the rebuilding of Tokyo and the environs devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. This etching illustrates the famous Sacred Bridge (shinkyo) over the Daiya River at the Futarasan Shrine in Nikko, far from the destruction of the quake.
References:
Hugh Byas, TOKIO BUILDS FOR A STRANGE DUAL LIFE: Architecture of the Remade City Is the Mirror of Old and New That Dwell There Together, The New York Times Magazine, December 8, 1929
The New York Times, Anton Schutz, 83, Started Graphic Society in 1925; Well Known for Etchings (obituary), October 7, 1977
The British Museum, Anton Schutz biography (www.britishmuseum.org)
(inv. no. 10-2940)
price: $500