Soyer, Raphael. PASSER-BY. Etching, 1935 (Cole 40,). 9 5/16 x 6 7/8 inches; 237 x 175 mm. Edition of 2 or 3, per Cole, "about three" per Gettings, "Raphael Soyer Sixty-Five Years of Printmaking (Hirschorn catalogue)." A "bon a tirer" proof, signed "OK Soyer" lower left. A stunning image, printed with great clarity and tone, and in excellent condition. Provenance: Sid Deitch Gallery, New York. One of the rarest and among the finest of Soyer's early prints. Soyer comment, quoted in Gettings: "This is after a painting called "New Hat." The model was Erica, a young woman who posed for me a great deal. She also posed for Reginald Marsh. The etching is about a girl dressed up in a coat, gloves and hat passing a store window on a cold day. I observed people walking like this girl and tried to reproduce it in my studio." In later years Soyer reworked, and published in large editions of 250 to 300, images from his early graphic oeuvre. Often these later pieces were done in color where the original has been in black & white, usually they are lithographs, almost always they suffer in comparison with the originals on which they are based. The image for Passer-By is one which was reworked in this manner, but done in lithography, printed in sepia, and of different dimensions.
