Twenty-four German expressionist woodcuts from the New World

Thalmann, Max. Vom Rhythmus der Neuen Welt –Amerika im Holzschnitt. Jena, Germany: Eugen Diederichs, 1927.

4to.; 24 woodcuts; age-toned; white cloth stamped in black, bumped. In original ecru dust jacket stamped in black.

First edition, the full edition. Bookplate on colophon inscribed by Frank A. Thalmann [Max’s brother]: “donated to the Pasadena art museum by Frank A. Thalmann / Brother of Max Thalmann / Seal Beach Leisure World Feb. 1967 / Max died in Weimar 1945”. 

The German illustrator Max Thalmann (1890–1945) was a figurative artist who produced black and white woodblock prints for a short period of time between the two World Wars. For the rest of his life, he mostly worked as a graphic designer and a bookbinder, having been trained as such under Henry Van De Velde at Weimar. His artistic production consists mainly of three bodies of work: The Passion, Der Dom (The Cathedral), and Rhythmus der Neuen Welt – Amerika im Holzschnitt (Rhythm of the New World – America in Woodcuts), each with a distinctive character. America in Woodcuts was inspired by Thalmann’s travels in the United States in 1922/23, following a brief teaching stint at the Bauhaus. This volume contains 24 strongly graphic, modernist woodcut images of American cities, with an introduction by Albert Talhoff. This livre d’artiste reveals the rising star of American modernism on European artists, just prior to the Depression and between the world wars. Thalmann’s works are extremely sharp and originally composed, featuring a stylized representation which often reduces his subjects to geometrical sequences. Windows and building volumes in America in Woodcuts participate in the same rhythmic composition as the buzzing street on the bottom of the woodcuts. In German.