I dug into the oeuvre of a new-to-me etcher this weekend. Susan Pyzow is a native New Yorker, and many of her prints are set in NYC. She does a level of detail similar to Wengenroth, but with a very different texture, which is pleasing by virtue of it’s difference and intrinsically. I selected today’s print because the subject is a place somewhat familiar to me–the Jefferson Market area, around 6th Av and W 10th Street. My grandmother lived on W. 11th Street between 5th and 6th Av, and she did much of her shopping at the Jefferson Market, a somewhat “gourmet” grocery store which was a neighborhood landmark for decades. The immediate area took on the Jefferson Market name, and a branch of the NY Public Library at 6th and 10th was called the Jefferson Market branch of the library. It was itself a historic building–a former courthouse with a very distinctive and beautiful appearance. Pyzow has a nice print of the north end of the library as seen (I think) from W 10th St. It evokes that area and that era for me–visiting my grandmother and being given luscious desserts, and walking around that portion of Greenwich Village.
Jefferson Market (Etching, 2017)
