Tuesday, May 4, 2021 – Scenes from our city in years past

By admin

Special Mother’s Day Shopping

at the Kiosk Wed-Sun 12-5 p.m.
See details  in tomorrow’s edition

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2021

The

354th Edition

From Our Archives

ALFRED MIRA

ARTIST OF OUR CITY SCENE

FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

The Greenwich Village vision of artist Alfred Mira Alfred S. Mira and his realistic, gritty, intimate Greenwich Village street scenes should be better known. [“Seventh Avenue, Greenwich Village”]

Born in 1900 in Italy to a carpenter father, he left school and began working for an interior decorator, dreaming of going to art school but without the 50 cents a day it cost to attend.

Alfred S. Mira (on left, with arms crossed) at the Grand Central Art Galleries with Associate Director Claude Barber (on right) [photograph] / (photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son)

He did make a career out of painting though; he listed his address as East 8th Street and his occupation as painter in the 1940 census. And he sold his work at the Washington Square outdoor art exhibit, a heralded event decades ago.

Though he painted scenes from all over the city, Mira focused his work on the sites and monuments of Greenwich Village: the Washington Arch, MacDougal Street, and Seventh Avenue South. His inspiration seems to come from the urban realists who made a name for themselves in the early 1900s, such as George Bellows and George Luks.

Rainy Day in Washington Square Park

“Mira painted angled, bird’s eye viewpoints, thereby creating what one critic categorized as ‘moving camera eye impressions,’” explains gallery Questroyal Fine Art LLC. He died in 1980 or 1981, depending on the source, and his work still inspires. It also still sells, with several paintings going for thousands of dollars at top auction houses.

[Self portrait, 1934] Below

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SEND YOUR SUBMISSION TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

60th  STREET LAMPPOST BASE THAT WAS REMOVED WHEN TRAM
WAS BUILT.  THE SECOND AVENUE EL WAS ON THE AVENUE
AND A ROW OF BROWNSTONES ON  60th  STREET.
(WILLIAM H. JACKSON COMPANY)
Vicki Feinmel got it.

       

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

Sources

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)

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

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