Donald Shaw MacLaughlan — The Cathedral

A spire holding its ground in a street that has grown taller than it.

The document

A gothic spire rises out of a block of commercial buildings, and the crowd at street level runs right across the bottom of the sheet — shop windows, hats, a queue. MacLaughlan signed and dated this plate too: D S MacLaughlan 1931, cut in at the lower left above the shopfronts.

One of the plates of Ten Etched Plates of Chicago, the portfolio MacLaughlan made in 1931. The Smithsonian holds eight of the ten plus the frontispiece.

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 orders over $75.

Donald Shaw MacLaughlan · The Cathedral, etching, 1931. Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1974.85.80. Public domain (CC0).