THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 – THE MANY TRAINS ACROSS AMERICA

By admin

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER  3,  2020

The

147th Edition

From Our Archives

ALL ABOARD FOR

TRAIN ART

For those of you who have not been commuting recently  there are some images to remind you of your traveling world.  You may work from home even longer after seeing these.

“Locomotive Standing,” a lithograph by Harold Faye (1910-1980), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Program, 1939. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Gibbes Museum of Art.

“Locomotive Standing,” a lithograph by Harold Faye (1910-1980), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Program, 1939. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Gibbes Museum of Art.

“Long Island Railroad,” an oil painting by Earl John Colville (1878-1970), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, 1937. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and Gregory Halpern.

“Wall Street Station,” a lithograph by Elizabeth Olds (1896-1991), created while she was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1938. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Dox Thrash, Railroad Yard, ca. 1933-1934, aquatint, etching and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1981.11.2

Jack Savitsky, Train in Coal Town, 1968, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.137 Jack Savitsky’s Train in Coal Town depicts a coal-fired passenger train traveling between Pottsville and Silver Creek, two well-known coal towns in Pennsylvania. Behind the smoky plume of the locomotive stand a blue-gray coal breaker and eight mill houses—the very houses that make up the painting’s border. Savitsky conveys the sameness and unending work of the company town through his use of repetitive patterning and decorative elements. However, the lively colors and cheerful rural setting also reflect an energetic spirit within the miner community. Title Train in Coal Town Artist Jack Savitsky Date 1968 Location Smithsonian American Art Museum Luce Foundation Center 3rd Floor 22A Dimensions

Karl Fortess, Island Dock Yard, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.94

Trains, trucks, and industrial buildings were what Karl Fortess envisioned when the Public Works of Art Project suggested that he depict “the American Scene.” The artist left his home in the picturesque artists’ colony of Woodstock, New York, and traveled ten miles to Kingston to make this painting. Kingston had long been a thriving Hudson River port town that supplied Pennsylvania coal and local brick, stone, and cement to New York City. The Depression slowed shipping, but a newly invented concrete mixture stimulated the local cement business. Fortess’s pictorial research at Kingston was demanding, as he noted, “Inclement weather and bad roads have made it impossible to go into Kingston as often as necessary.”

Fortess described his painting as “a view of the Kingston Point railway yard, showing track intersections, [a] station, freight trains, . . . shacks, and [a] background of buildings with a suggestion of a plain and barren winter trees [on] a grey day.” The artist emphasized the angular geometry of the structures. He played the predominant shadowy gray colors against spots of intense red, yellow, and blue. Trucks and trains hurry to and fro, but the action proceeds without the presence of a single visible human figure.

Theodore C. Polos, Train, n.d., lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.210

Steve Ashby, Train in Landscape, n.d., carved wood with applied wood pieces, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., 1998.84.4

“I wake up with an idea that won’t let me get back to sleep. So I get up and make that idea.” Steve Ashby converted most of his ideas into objects in the early 1960s after his wife had died and he retired from his years of work as a farm hand and gardener. Ashby’s favorite subjects were figures and animals, often inspired by the agrarian activities of Fauquier County, Virginia, where his ancestors had been slaves. Some of his figures were wind-activated to perform various activities that ranged from the domestic to the pornographic. Others include parts that move when handled. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990) A descendant of Virginia slaves, Steve Ashby spent his entire life in Delaplane, Virginia. Ashby and his wife rented a former schoolhouse and enjoyed a modest lifestyle with their adopted son. Ashby had a lifelong interest in carving but began making the figures he called ​“fixing-ups” in the early 1960s, after his wife had passed away and his son no longer lived at home. These works were slapdash and highly expressive, comprising found objects and personal items such as clothing, jewelry, and hair. Ashby sometimes used photographic cutouts to create faces and frequently bestowed his sculptures with moving parts.

Reginald Marsh, Locomotives, Jersey City, 1934, oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Felicia Meyer Marsh, 1979.127.1 Locomotives, Jersey City is from a series of paintings Reginald Marsh did in the 1930s that focuses on modes of transportation. Here, four mighty trains power along the tracks, while the smoke and steam emitted from the smokestacks trail behind. In the distance, Marsh painted a cloud of smoke using a thin oil wash, creating a backdrop that is both delicate and dense. Together, the distant smoke clouds and those coming from the locomotives obscure much of the sky. The painting’s gritty colors reflect the urban environment of Jersey City, which was a manufacturing center in the years preceding World War II. Railroads, however, were the biggest employer and owned a third of the city’s nearly fifteen square miles. It was here that the national train networks terminated (Andrew Jacobs, ​“A City Whose Time Has Come Again,” New York Times, April 30, 2000).

Daniel Celentano (1902–1980) was an American Scene artist who made realistic paintings of everyday life in New York, particularly within the Italian neighborhood of East Harlem where he lived. During the Great Depression he painted murals in the same style for the Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project.

• Lily Furedi, Subway, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965.18.43
• In this painting Lily Furedi boldly did something that few dare to do: she looked at people on the subway. She took the viewpoint of a seated rider gazing down the car at her fellow passengers. The Hungarian-born artist knew of the subway riders’ customary avoidance of staring at one’s fellow riders; most people in her painting keep to themselves by hiding behind a magazine or newspaper, or by sleeping. Those who violate the unwritten rule do so furtively. A woman takes a quiet sidelong glance at the newspaper read by the man next to her, while a man steals a peek at a young woman applying lipstick. Only two women in the foreground, who obviously know each other, dare to look directly at each other as they talk companionably.

Furedi takes a friendly interest in her fellow subway riders, portraying them sympathetically. She focuses particularly on a musician who has fallen asleep in his formal working clothes, holding his violin case. The artist would have identified with such a New York musician because her father, Samuel Furedi, was a professional cellist.

Home time ,some news to read too I like this painting by artist Lily Furedi 1896-1969 ‘Subway’ painted 1939.

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EDITORIAL

Exciting things are happening at Coler. Thru a wonderful program ARTS IN MEDICINE, Coler will have a new three part mural painted in the main corridor.  ARTS IN MEDICINE is funded by the Laurie M. Tisch ILLUMINATION FUND.

Members of the Coler residents, staff and others are on a committee to choose the artwork and theme. After approval the mural panels will be painted by the residents and then the panels will be applied to the walls.

By the first week in November their will be an unveiling and hopefully members of the island community will be able to attend. (The nursing home is still closed to outside visitors).

Coler is one facility that is receiving a mural this year. The others are Jacobi, Queens Hospital,Gouveneur Hospital, Seaview, Lincoln and Elmhurst Hospital

Judith Berdy

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff
TEXT AND IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ANNEX GALLERIES.
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM.

FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

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