Rudolph Ruzicka, 'Brooklyn Bridge, N. Y.', 1915, wood engraving, edition 35. Signed and annotated 'd. Sc. imp.' (designed, engraved, printed by the artist) in pencil. Numbered 14/35 in the bottom right sheet corner, in the artist’s hand, in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on antique cream laid paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/8 to 1 1/2 inches); in excellent condition. Printed by the artist. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 7 3/8 x 6 15/16 inches (187 x 176 mm); sheet size 10 3/16 x 9 3/16 inches (259 x 233 mm).
Exhibitied: American Prints 1900-1950, Yale University Art Gallery, 10 May 1983 - 31 August 1983.
Collections: Brooklyn Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
Hood Museum (Dartmouth College), Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery.
ABOUT THE IMAGE
Created in 1915, this striking wood engraving captures the Brooklyn Bridge at a moment when New York was emerging as the modern metropolis of the twentieth century. Rather than treating the bridge as a purely architectural subject, Rudolph Ruzicka presents it as a dynamic symbol of the city's energy and ambition. The massive suspension span anchors the composition while the skyline rises behind it in a rhythmic arrangement of towers, warehouses, and waterfront activity.
Ruzicka's mastery of the wood engraving medium is evident throughout. Using an intricate network of finely cut lines, he transforms the harbor waters into a shimmering field of movement and atmosphere, contrasting their animated surface with the solid geometry of the bridge and city beyond. The result is a composition of remarkable balance, combining structural precision with a strong sense of life and motion.
Produced during the formative years of American modernist printmaking, the engraving reflects Ruzicka's gift for simplifying complex urban subjects into powerful graphic design. The elevated viewpoint, bold contrasts, and carefully organized patterns reveal the influence of both traditional wood engraving and the emerging modernist sensibility that would shape much of his later work.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
“As well as any man who has ever made a woodcut he has learned how to use the block for the creation of atmosphere. Ruzicka’s gift of charm, a charm heightened by notable self-respect, is seen in all his prints... To his technical competency, he has joined a keen sense of the very real poetry of the brick and mortar of New York and Boston... Surely after seeing these no one should lament the limitations of the woodcut or consider it a dying art.”
—William M. Ivins, Jr., The Wood-Engravings of Rudolph Ruzicka, The Newark Museum Association, 1917
Rudolph Ruzicka (1883–1973) was an American wood engraver, illustrator, typographer, and designer whose views of New York, Boston, and the American urban landscape rank among the finest achievements in twentieth-century American graphic art. Born in Kourim, Bohemia, he immigrated to Chicago with his family at age 10. He initially pursued his artistic education through drawing classes at Hull House before beginning an apprenticeship in wood engraving. From 1900 to 1902 he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1903 he relocated to New York City, where he worked as an engraver for the American Bank Note Company and later as a freelance commercial artist. He continued his studies at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art. In 1906 he returned to the practice of wood engraving, drawing inspiration from the French artist Auguste-Louis Lepère, whose work demonstrated how modern urban subjects could be transformed into images of remarkable atmosphere and graphic power.
Ruzicka contributed significantly to the fields of typography, illustration, and graphic design, designing typefaces and producing wood-engraved illustrations for Daniel Berkeley Updike’s Merrymount Press. He also served as a designer and consultant for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company for more than fifty years. Throughout his career, he created numerous seals and medals, including those for the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Dartmouth Medal awarded by the American Library Association.
In 1910, Ruzicka established his studio at 954 Lexington Avenue in New York City, where he received his first major art commission from System magazine. This marked the beginning of a period of remarkable artistic productivity and numerous exhibitions at prestigious venues, including the Société de la Gravure in Paris, the Grolier Club, and the Century Association. In collaboration with the Grolier Club, he published New York, a series of thirty colored wood engravings depicting the evolution of the city’s architectural styles.
The decade preceding the First World War was among the high points of Ruzicka’s achievement as a wood engraver. During these years, he produced a remarkable series of views of New York City that combined technical mastery with a distinctly modern vision of the urban environment. Works such as Brooklyn Bridge (1915) demonstrate his ability to unite architectural precision, atmospheric effects, and sophisticated design within the demanding medium of wood engraving. These images record New York at a transformative moment, when monumental engineering works and newly rising skyscrapers were reshaping the city’s identity. Today, they are widely regarded among the most accomplished American urban prints of the early twentieth century.
In 1916, Ruzicka constructed a residence and workshop in Dobbs Ferry, New York. In 1935 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. That same year he joined the Typographic Development staff of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, where he developed several typeface families. His expertise was further recognized through his work with Harvard University's Houghton Library, where he supervised a major display devoted to the history and practice of printing and graphic arts.
In 1948, Ruzicka relocated to Massachusetts and later settled in Vermont. Over the years, he collaborated with D. B. Updike on a number of distinguished book designs, including Newark and the Grolier Club’s edition of Irving, as well as the celebrated annual keepsakes produced by Merrymount Press. He also provided extensive consultation for Updike’s landmark publication Printing Types.
Although celebrated during his lifetime as a typographer and book designer, Ruzicka’s reputation among print collectors rests primarily on his wood engravings, which remain admired for their technical refinement, atmospheric richness, and evocative interpretations of the modern city.
Ruzicka’s graphic work is represented in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Hood Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and many other public and university collections.
