Item #51-4344 St. Bartholomew's Church, New York [Park Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets]. Original etching. Curt Szekessy, active.

St. Bartholomew's Church, New York [Park Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets]. Original etching.

New York: circa 1918-1920. Etching and drypoint 19 x 14 inches plate size ; i 27 x 20.25 inches sheet size. Good impression on rag wove paper. Watermarked F J Head & Co. Small marginal tears and small time stain in right margin. Signed in pencil lower right. Copyright without date in the plate, in the upper left corner. Ref: Karen F. Beall, American prints in the Library of Congress: a catalog of the collection. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1970, p. 470,, for a different print. (Reprinted by Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, San Francisco in 1991)...
Szekessy exhibited with the Brooklyn Society of Etchers intermittently from 1918-1931, and with the Print Makers Society of California in 1921. The Index of American Print Exhibitions 1882-1940, lists nine prints by this artist....In May 1914, the vestry of St. Bartholomew's Protestant Episcopal Church was authorized to purchase (for $1.4 million) an irregularly-shaped lot on the east side of Park Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets, that was formerly occupied by the Schaefer Brewing Company. The Arts Committee, headed by Alvin Krech, one of the most prominent members of the vestry, recommended that Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue receive the commission to design the new church. Alice Vanderbilt offered to pay for moving her husband's memorial to the new location, and Goodhue used the Stanford White portal as the basis of his design. The rector wanted a large non-Gothic building that could seat 1,500 people (400 more than the old church), and the vestry wished to finance the land and building with proceeds from the sale of the Madison Avenue property and a portion of the Park Avenue lot. After reviewing several schemes, the committee selected Goodhue's plans for a grand domed edifice in a Byzantine-Romanesque style that was inspired by San Marco in Venice. Goodhue assured the vestry that the steel-framed design could be built for $500,000, although his recently-completed all-stone St. Thomas Church had cost $1.1 million. Starting in 1915, the Park Avenue lot was cleared, contracts were signed, and on May 1, 1917 the cornerstone of the third St. Bartholomew's Church was laid by Bishop David Hummel Greer. By September of that year, the church has spent $280,000 on the building and it was estimated that another $1 million would be needed due to increased costs for material and labor. Goodhue's scheme was truncated, much of the decoration was deleted, and it was decided to temporarily abandon construction of the dome and cloister. Goodhue was asked if he could reuse the pews from the old church, saving the cost of new ones. Many other materials and furnishings from the old building were modified and reused, including some stained glass, the marble paving, chancel rail, choir stalls, the painting over the altar, and the reredos. By the Fall of 1918, the unfinished church could be used, although the exterior on the north side was incomplete, the large Skinner pipe organ was still being installed in the gallery, and burlap and felt covered the walls that would eventually be tiled or otherwise decorated. Finally, on October 20, 1918, the first service in the new church took place before a large congregation. Item #51-4344

Price: $1,200.00

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