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Black and white print of a man with a jackhammer in a city scene.

The City

Past Exhibition

February 20, 2020 – February 27, 2022
East Building, Ground Level - Gallery 106A

Towering skyscrapers, massive steel bridges, and the hubbub of city streets captivated artists working in the first half of the twentieth century. Roaming the rapidly changing urban environment, they explored ways to convey the awe-inspiring scale and speed of the modern American city. For photographers, technological advances such as hand-held cameras and faster film and shutter speeds enabled new visual practices, from off-kilter, oblique views and bird’s and worm’s eye vantage points to the blurred effects of motion. Printmakers likewise experimented with cropped compositions and varying proportions to underscore verticality or broad expanse.

Drawn to the social strata of the metropolis, artists portrayed a wide variety of city-dwellers going about their daily lives. The dynamic geometry of the skyline and vitality of the city offered endless sources of inspiration, from the dramatically cast shadows of cavernous streets, the cadence of drying laundry suspended in rows, and the swirling forms of Coney Island’s amusement rides to the repeating curves of ornamental lampposts and the dazzling lights of the city at night.

Selected Works

The City

Alfred Stieglitz, From the Back-Window—291, 1915, platinum print, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.3.372
The City

Martin Lewis, Glow of the City, 1929, drypoint in black on wove paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5710
The City

Ilse Bing, Laundry, New York, 1936, gelatin silver print, Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff, 2001.147.64
Printed with bands and blocks in shades of gray against cream-white paper, we look across and down onto a city block crowded with at least five skyscrapers in this vertical, stylized etching and aquatint. The bases of the buildings crowd densely within the city block, and they flare slightly outward as they extend up toward us. The faces of the building are flat, solid, and smooth, with no windows. The buildings nearly fill the composition but dark clouds peek in along the top edge of the print. Rays of sunshine and shadows are shown as alternating bands of light and dark falling diagonally across the building facades from the upper right. Black cars fill the streets running along the two sides of the city block we can see, and tiny dots suggest people walking on sidewalks far below. The print’s title is written in pencil in the lower left, “Man’s Canyons,” and signed by the artist in the lower right, “S. L. Margolies.”
The City

Samuel L. Margolies, Man's Canyons, 1936, etching and aquatint, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.3331
From close to the ground, we look sharply up at three skyscrapers that nearly meet in the empty sky in this black and white photograph. The building in front of us has more than twenty-five stories, each of which is lined with windows. The building to our left is deep in shadow as it zooms steeply into space. Sun warms the top half of the building to our right. Only a sliver of sky is visible between the left and center building, and where the three meet in the deep distance.
The City

Berenice Abbott, Canyon, Broadway and Exchange Place, 1936, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 2000.148.1
The City

Armin Landeck, View of New York, 1932, lithograph in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.3010
The City

Ilse Bing, View from Hotel Algonquin, New York, 1936, gelatin silver print, Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff, 2001.147.65
The City

Victoria Hutson Huntley, Lower New York, 1934, lithograph in black on wove paper, Gift of Bob Stana and Tom Judy, 2015.115.23
The City

Jolán Gross-Bettelheim, Bowery, c. 1938, lithograph in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Florian Carr Fund and Gift of the Print Research Foundation, 2008.115.79
The City

Walter Rosenblum, Girl on a Swing, Pitt Street, New York, 1938, gelatin silver print, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2001.67.184
The City

Walter Rosenblum, Boy on a Roof, Pitt Street, New York, 1950, gelatin silver print, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2001.67.185
The City

Howard Cook, Manhattan Bridge, 1931, wood engraving in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.1312
The City

Esther Bubley, Manhattan Bridge, New York, c. 1947, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 1999.108.2
The City

Clara E. Sipprell, Sixth Avenue, New York, 1920s, silver print, R. K. Mellon Family Foundation, 2011.31.1
The City

Ruth Orkin, Starlight Roof at the Waldorf, New York City, 1950, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 2000.83.3
The City

Johan Hagemeyer, Pedestrians, 1921, gelatin silver print mounted on brown wove paper on paperboard, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography and The Amy Rose Silverman Fund, 2003.11.1
The City

Martin Lewis, Shadow Dance, 1930, drypoint and etching in black on laid paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1964.8.1199
The City

Godfrey Frankel, Times Square Restaurant, Looking Out on Street, 1946, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the artist), 2015.19.4317
The City

Martin Lewis, Society of American Graphic Artists, Chance Meeting, 1940-1941, drypoint in black on laid paper, Corcoran Collection (Society of American Etchers, Inc.), 2015.19.515
The City

Walker Evans, Subway Portrait, 1938-1941, gelatin silver print, Gift of Kent and Marcia Minichiello, 1988.56.40
The City

Walker Evans, Subway Portrait, 1938-1941, gelatin silver print, John Wilmerding Fund, 1989.11.2
The City

Mabel Dwight, George C. Miller, Ferry Boat, 1930, lithograph in black on Rives BFK wove paper, Gift of Bob Stana and Tom Judy, 2015.115.15
The City

Benton Spruance, The People Work - Evening, 1937, lithograph in black on Rives BFK paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.7988
The City

Lisette Model, 42nd Street from the Sixth Avenue Subway, New York, 1940-1941, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 1998.137.1
The City

Phyllis (Pele) De Lappe, Subway, 1932, lithograph, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.1434
The City

Louis Lozowick, Luna Park, 1926, lithograph in black on wove paper, Ruth and Jacob Kainen Collection, 1989.80.11
The City

Benton Spruance, The People Play-Spring, 1941, lithograph in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.4565
The City

Sid Grossman, San Gennaro Festival, New York City, 1948, gelatin silver print, Anonymous Gift, 2007.107.6
The City

Alvin Langdon Coburn, New York, 1910, bound volume of 20 photogravures, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2009.134.1
The City

Charles Turzak, Man with Drill, 1931, woodcut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.4790

About the Series: American Art, 1900–1950: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

During a period fueled by enormous urban growth and technological changes, riven by world wars, and rocked by new modes of thought, American artists explored many diverse means to express their changing experience and environment. Prints, drawings, and photographs were vital media through which artists pursued radical experiments in form, figuration, and abstraction. Reevaluating European traditions, they developed new ways of seeing the modern world around them.


Complementing the American modernist paintings and sculptures in the adjacent galleries, these rotating installations feature prints, drawings, and photographs by American artists working in the first half of the 20th century. By looking at pairs or groups of artists, or at broader themes such as abstract portraiture or the Machine Age, the installations spark conversations between established and lesser-known figures in American modernism and highlight the era’s full range and complexity.

Past Exhibitions from this Series

Organization
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Passes
Admission is always free and passes are not required

Banner detail: Charles Turzak, Man with Drill, 1931, woodcut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.4790