Donald Shaw MacLaughlan — North Dearborn Street

A pencil drawing, with the elevated tracks cutting straight across the street.

The document

Graphite on paper, and the only sheet of the twelve with no colour and no ink at all. The elevated railway crosses the middle of the drawing on its steel structure, cars stand beneath it and the buildings are laid in with a hard, even line. A working drawing, kept.

This sheet is one of three works on paper that came with the portfolio but are not part of it: the museum catalogues them as drawings, not prints.

About the artist

Donald Shaw MacLaughlan (1876–1938) was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and died in Marrakesh. He spent three decades etching the old cities of Europe — Rouen, Venice, Paris — and in Chicago he was represented by the Albert Roullier Art Galleries. In 1931, at fifty-five, he made twelve views of Chicago. The following year he took a prize at the Society of Etchers annual in New York.

The print

Printed to order and made to last. Choose Museum Matte (heavyweight matte art paper) or Fine Art Giclée (Hahnemühle cotton paper — the archival standard). The Métrica museum caption — artist, title, date and source — is printed as part of the piece, set in our house type. Free US shipping on two or more pieces.

Donald Shaw MacLaughlan · North Dearborn Street, graphite, 1931. Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1974.85.17. Public domain (CC0).

Theme: Architectural etching of Chicago by Donald Shaw MacLaughlan.