Gallery 50

In the mid-1940s, Charles Sheeler photographed a rubber plant in West Virginia, focusing on industrial details, including exterior pipes, cylinders, and cat-walks. The paintings he made from these photographs demonstrate his interest in overlapping shapes and shadows—in this picture, the function of the machinery is shown as being secondary to their appearance. In Sheeler's view, his industrial pictures were less about labor than about “the perception of order in the visual world…and its expression in purely plastic terms.”

Black Sea was painted at a pivotal point in the artist's career, one year after his first major museum exhibition. The subject almost certainly was inspired by his regular summer vacations in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he sketched and painted outdoors. Avery often painted watercolors on site, and he would later translate these compositions into oils in his New York studio. The striking black and yellow colors evoke the moments after sunset, when the sunlight gradually fades into darkness.

Black Sea was painted at a pivotal point in the artist's career, one year after his first major museum exhibition. The subject almost certainly was inspired by his regular summer vacations in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he sketched and painted outdoors. Avery often painted watercolors on site, and he would later translate these compositions into oils in his New York studio. The striking black and yellow colors evoke the moments after sunset, when the sunlight gradually fades into darkness.

Black Sea was painted at a pivotal point in the artist's career, one year after his first major museum exhibition. The subject almost certainly was inspired by his regular summer vacations in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he sketched and painted outdoors. Avery often painted watercolors on site, and he would later translate these compositions into oils in his New York studio. The striking black and yellow colors evoke the moments after sunset, when the sunlight gradually fades into darkness.

The tattered clothes of these children identify them immediately as working-class. Likely the offspring of the immigrant population that grew New York City by more than 300,000 people over ten years, these children are burdened by an overcrowded and under resourced urban environment. Despite the circumstances the boys come to the aid of a lost girl and, in so doing, create an idyllic scene of community and support.

The tattered clothes of these children identify them immediately as working-class. Likely the offspring of the immigrant population that grew New York City by more than 300,000 people over ten years, these children are burdened by an overcrowded and under resourced urban environment. Despite the circumstances the boys come to the aid of a lost girl and, in so doing, create an idyllic scene of community and support.

Pierre-Edouard Baranowski was Modigliani’s friend and an aspiring painter. To create this work, Modigliani painted over an earlier portrait composition. He started by outlining Baranowski’s face with blue-gray paint. Then he built up the modeling of the face using multiple layers of thick impasto. Gaps between the shirt and the face expose the dark colors of the previous painting and the hardboard support. The artist’s fingerprints are also visible in the paint around the edges of the work.

Du Bois’s work is easily recognizable for its stylized, sculptural treatment of the figure, as seen in this painting of a seated nude. The composition’s strength lies in its simplicity, attesting to his belief that the true realist explored what was essential and indefinable about their subject, in his words “a shameless fellow completely unafraid of reality . . . a fellow with eyes to see and a heart to accept and appreciate the contours of his own kind.”

Du Bois’s work is easily recognizable for its stylized, sculptural treatment of the figure, as seen in this painting of a seated nude. The composition’s strength lies in its simplicity, attesting to his belief that the true realist explored what was essential and indefinable about their subject, in his words “a shameless fellow completely unafraid of reality . . . a fellow with eyes to see and a heart to accept and appreciate the contours of his own kind.”