Click the image for enlargement.
(Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library Print Department)

Date: 1926

Medium: Lithograph

Edition: 30

Dimensions: 11 1/4 x 15 3/8 in.

Printer: George C. Miller (probably)*

Typical pencil annotations on impressions from the edition: just below the image numbered and titled (l.l.) signed and dated (l.r.)**

Public collections holding this print: BMFA, BPL, LC, PhMA, SAAM

Topic galleries for this print:
1. Churches
2. New York City Scenes
3. Winter Scenes

*Printer: Even though no direct evidence is currently available to substantiate that George C. Miller was the printer of this lithograph, it can be inferred. Miller is the only printer known to print Fiene lithographs in New York (or for that matter in the United States), and at least from as early as 1926. Two impressions of lithographs from 1926 dedicated to Miller have been observed. (See Barns and Winter.) Throughout Fiene's career of making lithographs in New York, he typically dedicated an impression from outside each edition to this printer.

**Annotations (numbering and states): The numbering on the PhMA impression is in the standard format (number within the edition over total number of the edition, l.l.), in this case "26/30." The BMFA impression, however, has "no 6". This may indicate there is an edition of first states impressions of at least six. It was not unusual for Fiene to create a separately numbered edition for a first state. (See Brooklyn Bridge.)

Inscribed impression: The PhMA impression is inscribed "To Carl Zigrosser" (prolific writer about prints and printmaking, director of the Weyhe Gallery in New York from 1919 to 1940 and the first curator of prints and drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, from 1940 to 1963).

Impressions outside the addition: At least two trial proofs were created, annotated as such in the artist's hand.

Setting: The church pictured is the Mount Washington Presbyterian Church in the Inwood section of Uptown Manhattan. Dyckman Street runs southeast to northwest crossing upper Manhattan through Inwood. For a history of the Mount Washington Presbyterian Church, click here.

Reproduced in: Arts Magazine Feb., '26; Boston Evening Transcript, Nov. 6, 1926; reproduced as a greeting card by AAG in 1935

Paper: The BMFA, BPL and PhMA impressions are all on Japan paper. Before 1928, Fiene prints were more likely to be printed on Japan paper; from 1928 on, BFK RIVES wove paper was more commonly the choice of Fiene and his printer George C. Miller.

Related Works: Of the painting Dyckman Street Church, Fiene comments, "In 1926, I began to paint American scenes, specifically scenes of New York City. One of them, which you may have seen in the Whitney Museum, of the Dyckman Church was very gray and somber. It made quite a sensation at the time. . . . I wanted to find my own reality. This mood runs through later paintings, a series I did of Connecticut churches." (Buitar 93); To view typical Fiene lithographs of Connecticut churches, see Newtown Church, Old Church, Connecticut, New Snow, and Colonial Church).