Irving Guyer WPA selling Original Pencil Signed Etching Night Basketball 1938 New York

Night Basketball is an original Etching created by American Jewish artist Irving Guyer (1916-2012) for the WPA in a pencil signed Limited Edition of about 50.

Guyer was hired in 1938 by the U.S. government through its Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP) which provided artists a small income during the Depression years. Guyer was on the payroll for 1938 and 1939, and during that period he produced several prints, primarily etchings.

"Night Basketball," one of the etchings produced by Guyer during that time, needs little explanation. It is bold and spontaneous image of a New York City sports event. This one does not have the WPA stamp, but we have seen a few other examples that do have the stamp including the one in the Baltimore Museum of Art WPA collection.

Collectors have increasingly become more interested in the WPA prints from the 1930s. They are an important part of the history of American art in the 20th century.

This is an original etching from a Limited Edition of about 50 signed in pencil by the artist. The print came from the personal estate collection of well known American artist, teacher, and printmaker Will Barnet who was the official printer for the Students Art League in New York where many of the WPA prints were made.

This WPA print is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art and can be seen on their website.

Sheet size - 9-3/4 x 14-1/4 inches
Image size - 8-7/8 x 11-7/8 inches

Excellent Condition without any flaws. This print is without age toning, foxing, tears, or creases.

A strong impression printed on cream wove paper at the Art Students League in New York under the direction of Will Barnet. Unmatted and unframed. Blank on the back, not laid down. Ships in a plastic archival sleeve.

Irving Guyer was an American painter and printmaker. While successful in New York through the 1960s, Guyer chose to work away from the New York gallery scene for much of his career. In the last decades of his life, he developed increasingly innovative, formally sophisticated work, combining masterful landscape and color field painting with geometric abstraction. Recently, his later works have been discovered and acquired by such distinguished collections as the Berkeley Art Museum and Reed College Art Collection.

A son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia, Guyer grew up in New York City and studied at the Art Students League of New York (1934-1937), the National Academy of Design (1933-1934) and the City College of New York (1932-1933). As a young artist of 23, he was awarded the first prize for painting at the 1939 World's Fair. In 1938 and 1939, he was employed by the Works Project Administration / Federal Art Project as a painter and printmaker.

Guyer's WPA prints are held in public collections selling, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, The Baltimore Museum of Art, the New York Public Library Print Collection, Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, and Indiana State University Permanent Art Collection. After being discharged from the Army in 1945, Guyer, who had married in 1942, chose to pursue a career in commercial art to support his family. For the next thirty years or so, he worked in New York City for a number of advertising studios, including his own (with partners), while continuing to paint.