Tuesday, March 6, 2021 – LITHOGRAPHS WITH A TOUCH OF HUMOR

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TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 2021

The

330th  Edition

From Our Archives

LEONARD PYTLAK

LITHOGRAPHS

FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
AND
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

Leonard Pytlak, Uptown, ca. 1939, color lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.217

The curious el train in the nocturnal 1930s city

April 5, 2021 From Ephemeral New York

When this lithograph was made by Leonard Pytlak in 1935, Manhattan’s elevated train lines were still screeching and lurching up and down the city’s major avenues.

Already made obsolete by subways and buses and soon to be dismantled, the el trains were noisy pieces of machinery that operated high above sidewalks yet helped transform late 19th century Gotham from a horse-powered town to a mighty metropolis of steel tracks.

But if the trains were emblems of the modern machine age, why is the lone figure crossing the nighttime street below the tracks so much larger than the train itself? And why is the street no wider than an alley? My guess is that Pytlak might be trying to humanize the el train, giving us a Modernist scene of out of proportion shapes with the soft light of Post-Impressionism. There’s also the influence of Ashcan social realism here: a Belgian block city street lined with a hotel and tenements.

Born in 1910, Pytlak was a lithographer who studied at the Art Students League and worked for the New York City WPA Graphics Program from 1934 to 1941, according to the Illinois State Museum. The museum has this strangely alluring lithograph, titled “Uptown,” in its collection.

Tags: Art Students League, Elevated Trains 1930s, Elevated Trains NYC Paintings, Leonard Pytlak, Leonard Pytlak Uptown, New York City 1930s Paintings

Leonard Pytlak, Side Track, n.d., color lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.216

Leonard Pytlak, Fall Day, n.d., color lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.318

Leonard Pytlak, New for Old, ca. 1939-1940, color lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.21

Leonard Pytlak, Dock Wallopers, ca. 1939-1940, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Audrey McMahon, 1968.98.19

Leonard Pytlak, Back Alley, ca. 1935-1943, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Jean Nichols, 1974.38.57

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MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SOUTHPOINT PARK
EAST SIDE LOOKING TOWARD THE SOON TO BE DEDICATED
HOPE MEMORIAL (STATUES ARE IN GREEN BOX)

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 Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

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