55. Abraham P. Hankins
(1904-1963)
Arrangement (Safety Pins)

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Hankins: Arrangement

Arrangement (Safety Pins)

Color screen print, 1947, 195 x 185 mm. Fine, fresh impression on chine-appliqué with good margins, signed and dated in pencil. Hankins was born in Gomel, Russia, the son of a poor rabbi. Showing early talent in drawing, he was sent to the United States at the age of ten to live with cousins in Philadelphia and to study art. Lying about his age, Hankins enlisted in the American army in World War 1, was gassed and, after being sent home, took up singing as a way to strengthen his lungs. He had musical talent and a patron sent him to Paris to study singing. For a while, art became a sideline -- but he returned to it. As both painter and printmaker, Hankins lived on the borderline between realism and abstraction, tilting different ways at different times. In the course of things, he made about two dozen screen prints (serigraphs), being, if not among the pioneers in that medium, still among the early practitioners. This is the earliest dated one we have seen. Hankins died on vacation in Miami Beach.

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