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Home , Albert Gleizes, A Day in New York, Ernest Lawson, Juliette Roche, Marcel Duchamp, Outer barrier

THEMATIC TOURS

“There is something in the air that makes sleep useless.” A Day in simone de beauvoir New York This itinerary takes us through a selection of María Corral Elisa Sopeña masterpieces at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza to the heart of this unique and unrepeatable city. A source of inspiration for painters, writers, photographers and film-makers, we shall stroll through its neighbourhoods and museums, meet its characters and enjoy its history. This is an opportunity to turn travellers, and discover the throb and thrill of this fascinating city.

MAX WEBER Grand Central Terminal (detail) A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 2

[GALLERY F] john george brown, the son of a passed legislation to protect children, ruined lawyer, arrived in New York from thanks to the Keating-Owen Act, which his native England in 1853, on the day restricted and controlled child labour. JOHN GEORGE BROWN of his twenty-second birthday. He first set The photographs of Jacob Riis and Lewis himself up in , where he opened Hine offer a documentary account of immi- Tough Customers, 1881 a portrait painter’s studio, and in 1861 gration, and the crowding and poverty Oil on canvas, 76 x 63.5 cm moved to Richard Morris Hunt’s Tenth of thousands of children such as those carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the Street Studio Building, a workshop painted by Brown, who would grow up museo thyssen-bornemisza, , inv. ctb.1987.23 specifically created for artists, where he in the streets of New York. remained for the rest of his career. Towards the end of the 19th century, Brown was known as the artist “who the had become an industrial has so successfully caught what one might power of the first order. The port of New call the elf-life of New York – that flicker- York was a beacon attracting millions of ing phantasmal humanity of our streets people. In 1884, seventy per cent of Amer- and alleys.” As he stated to an early biog- ican imports were channelled through the rapher, “I want people a hundred years port’s docks. By 1900, the port of New from now to know how the children that York City was already considered the I paint looked.” The painter, who grew up most important in the world, and became in poverty in England, remembered his the great gate of entry for Europeans impoverished childhood when he helped arriving in the USA between 1890 and to support his mother, brothers and sisters. 1954. During that period, twelve million After he had achieved economic success, immigrants entered the country through Brown proudly acknowledged his begin- , ’s main customs facil- nings as a working man, stating that he ity, and most of this population settled did not paint street urchins “solely because in Lower Manhattan. On 1 January, 1892, the public likes such pictures and pays me President Benjamin Harrison created the for them, but because I love the boys myself, first Federal Office of Immigration, which At the time George Brown painted for I, too, was once a poor lad like them.” on the very day of its inauguration took in Tough Customers, homeless youths Some of these abandoned children, seven hundred people arriving on three numbered by the tens of thousands their faces “preternaturally aged, brutalised, ships in search of a new life. On 2 January in . Brown has gone and defrauded of all that belongs to 1892, Annie Moore, a fifteen-year-old Irish down in history as the painter childhood”, were the product of a rapidly girl who arrived in America together with of “the children of the poor, the growing urban society swelled by an influx her two brothers, was the first recorded disinherited, the waifs and strays, of immigrants; others were orphaned by underaged immigrant to be taken in at the orphans”. the American Civil War. This period was Ellis Island. especially hard for children who lived in After disembarking in America, the new New York City. From 13 to 16 July 1863, arrivals had to respond to a questionnaire a series of violent disturbances later known including twenty-nine questions, prove as the Draft Riots or Draft Week broke out that they possessed a capital of no less in the city. In the course of these events, than twenty-five dollars to help them start the largest civil insurrection in American their new life, and pass a general health history, two hundred and thirty children examination. A mere two per cent of those had to be evacuated from the Colored who sought entry to the country are Orphan Asylum, which was ransacked and estimated to have been turned back, due burnt to the ground by the furious mob. in most cases to issues related to polygamy, The street urchins in Brown’s pictures criminal records, anarchist activities or are remarkably healthy, well-scrubbed, infectious diseases. and cheerful. Reality, however, was quite Today, more than one hundred million different: accelerated growth brought Americans can trace their ancestors back with it a good deal of poverty, hunger, to Ellis Island. The island was named after social inequality and child exploitation. Samuel Ellis, who purchased it in 1785, Labour robbed minors of their childhood, and currently houses the impressive but it was not until 1916 that Congress Immigration Museum. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 3

[GALLERY F] the well-known resort was a source put in place, and by the 1880s four lines of inspiration to painters, writers and were already in operation, carrying fifty- film-makers. The history of this strip of seven trains every day and conveying a SAMUEL S. CARR land that stretches into the sea to the south constant flow of visitors to the stop at of Brooklyn is a reflection of the social Brighton Beach Hotel, where on busy Sun- Children on the Beach, ca. 1879-1881 and economic transformations that took days more than one hundred thousand Oil on canvas, 20 x 25,5 cm place between the last third of the 19th travellers arrived. By boat, holidaymakers carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the century and the Second World War. were also able to reach the old pier on West museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. ctb.1989.16 was originally the Brighton Beach, and this mode of transport western-most of the outer barrier islands was used by more than one and a half in , but became a peninsula million people, in 1882 alone, to visit Coney after Coney Island Creek, which separated Island. it from the New York borough of Brooklyn, The transformation of Conyne Eylandt was filled in. Called Conyne Eylandt by into an amusement site began in the 1870s, the early Dutch settlers because of the at the time of the centenary of American great amount of rabbits which apparently independence. The area soon filled up inhabited the island (konijn meaning with hotels, parks, concert halls, “rabbit” in Dutch), its beginnings as a place halls, restaurants, casinos, race-tracks… for leisure and recreation date back to the Some of the offers of amusement were period when New York City was fast quite unique: visitors could ride to the top becoming America’s financial, industrial of a one-hundred-foot view-tower aboard and cultural capital. a steam-powered elevator, visit a pavilion The work of Samuel S. Carr, In the decades following the American that housed a camera obscura, or stay at a British born painter who moved Civil War a rapid process of urban expan- a hotel in the shape of an exotic giant to the United States, gives us the sion and industrialisation took place in elephant. These early attractions paved opportunity to visit one of the the former New Amsterdam, as the city the way for large amusement parks such most popular sites in New York: reinvented itself in a rush of change and as Luna Park, the Steeplechase and Coney Island. innovation. These swift transformations Dreamland, which were built in the course in social patterns, working life and income of the next few decades, making the area levels all led to the need for New Yorkers so famous that historian John F. Kasson to find ways of escaping the stress and would come to define it as “the laboratory strife of modern living. While the most of the new mass culture”. Coney Island exclusive resorts – such as New Port, on was the place where Buffalo Bill and Rhode Island – were reserved for the elites, Houdini premiered their shows, where Coney Island became a place for relaxation the roller-coaster that marvelled Charles and release that was open to all, from Lindbergh was invented, and where the workers to the upper classes. first hot-dogs were consumed. In a very short period of time, the island The canvas we present here is one of – at a distance of only 20 miles from Man- the numerous works that Samuel S. Carr hattan – went from being the relatively painted at Coney Island between 1879 and isolated and solitary retreat extolled by 1881. The coast at this time was divided Walt Whitman to what began to be known into four distinct sections: Norton’s Point as “the greatest watering-place in the had assumed an unsavoury reputation as world”. Its nearness to the centre of the an area frequented by con men; West city, and the rapid development of com- Brighton – the area Carr visited most – was munications, made Coney Island the the landing point for the steamboat traffic tourist site of choice during the second of excursionists; Brighton Beach became half of the 19th century and the first few the fashionable place to go; and Manhattan decades of the 20th century. In 1867 the Beach was the exclusive part, where street first railway connection to the island was merchants and showmen were prohibited. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 4

[GALLERY J] the tale goes that one day, just of splendour began in 1862, when Caroline after crossing the doorstep of Scribner’s Schermerhorn Astor took up residence on publishing house on , the south-eastern corner of 34th Street, at CHILDE HASSAM F. Scott Fitzgerald – then in his twenties a spot which later, in 1893, would become – was told that the famous writer Edith the legendary Hotel Astoria. Fifth Avenue at Washington Square, Wharton was to be found in the very The first commercial building on Fifth New York, 1891 next room. Acting upon a sudden impulse, Avenue was erected by Benjamin Altman, Oil on canvas, 56 x 40.6 cm Fitzgerald made his way into the room who purchased the north-eastern corner carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the and threw himself at Wharton’s feet. of 34th Street in 1896 to set up his depart- museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. ctb.1979.19 Edith Wharton, the first woman to win ment-store business, thereby creating an a Pulitzer Prize, was the chronicler of a exclusive shopping district that attracted world that was fast disappearing. The New York’s high society ladies and the hierarchies of New York were tumbling companies that catered for their needs. in the face of the opulence of the new Fifth Avenue houses some of the most rich, their wealth spawned by industry iconic buildings in the city’s Midtown and and banking, who were building mansions Upper East Side districts, including the on Fifth Avenue, holding luxurious Empire State Building (for more than forty parties and beginning to seep through years, the tallest in the world), Mount Sinai the cracks of the high society that decades Hospital, the New York Public Library, the previously had established itself on that Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Manhattan thoroughfare. the Metropolitan Museum of or the At the end of the 19th century, the main Guggenheim Museum. This part of character in Wharton’s novel The Age of Manhattan set the scene for films like Fifth Innocence wondered at the urban make-up Avenue Girl (1939), starring Ginger Rogers, of the city: “So New York is a labyrinth? and served to inspire the photography of It had seemed so plain and straight to me, . like Fifth Avenue. With all its cross-streets Hassam’s canvas probably depicts numbered!”. the painter’s block of brownstones, and There was and still is a straight, immor- perhaps the sidewalk in front of his stu- tal fault running through the honeycomb dio apartment. Nearby, on Washington Following his return from of Manhattan streets from the north to Square, the Washington Arch would in 1889, Hassam lived at 95, the south of the island, starting at the soon be completed. Designed by Stan- Fifth Avenue, a few steps from Harlem River and ending at Washington ford White and built in white marble to Washington Square. He chose Square Park, that divides the city in two commemorate the centenary of George to live on a part of Fifth Avenue sections, the East Side and the West Side, Washington’s investiture as president that resembled the tree-lined from which numbered streets stem per- of the United States, the monument was boulevards of Paris. pendicularly. suggested by the Arc de Triomphe on the This was the avenue chosen by Hassam Champs-Elysées in Paris. as his dwelling place. It was also the abode During the early 1890s Hassam painted of New York’s social elites, who had begun a number of views of Fifth Avenue in to move there in the 1860s, and to this all kinds of weather and soon became day continues to be one of the grandest well known for them. The fashionable and most expensive streets in the world. thoroughfare would fill with every type The stretch of Fifth Avenue overlooking of carriage, from spacious , open- would come to be known, sided surreys and elegant four-horse as from the , as Millionaire’s Row, landaus to small buggies and slim coupés because of the many rich New York fami- driven by coachmen. Ladies who were lies who built their stately mansions there; well aware of the importance of dress and a good example of such buildings was the decoration floated down the boulevard palace. wearing bustles and long white mitts, Fifth Avenue, the second longest street under the protection of parasols, on their in New York after Broadway Avenue, way to . In the words of Edgar extends for almost nine miles. Its history Allan Poe, who spent his last few years in A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 5

New York, “the display of wealth served a book including reproductions of the the same purpose as the old heraldic vistas he had painted of his favourite emblems of royalty”. cities: Paris, New York and London. In Childe Hassam also illustrated an arti- 1919 he bought a house on Long Island, cle on Fifth Avenue by Marianna G. Van which became his permanent summer Rensselaer for The Century Magazine in home, and it was there that he painted 1893, and in 1899 published Three Cities, many of his last canvases of the city.

[GALLERY J] in 1889, sent experienced huge growth due to its rapid several of parks to the Paris increase in population. The city was World’s Fair. These small-sized, unpre- getting bigger and bigger, and open spaces WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE tentious pictures depicted different nooks were few and far between. This began to and corners of settings in everyday life, highlight the need for a large public park In the Park. A By-path, ca. 1889 and did so in an innovative way, often where town dwellers may enjoy leisure Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 49 cm adopting Impressionist ideas such as a and relaxation, much as they did in the carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the close attention to nature and the use of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris or in London’s museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. ctb.1979.15 changing effects of light. The refreshing Hyde Park. The idea immediately gained scenes of city parks came at an important support from wealthy, influential New stage in the painter’s career, and earned Yorkers, who realised that a project him recognition from the critics and the like Central Park would add a touch of public. The scenes, painted soon after distinction to the city and place it at the great exhibition of French Impres- the level of the great European capitals. sionism that Durand-Ruel had organised On 21 July, 1853, the New York State in New York in 1886, introduced a fun- Legislature settled upon a 700-acre plot damental change in the work of Merritt of land in the centre of Manhattan for Chase, who began to devote his efforts the construction of the park. Four years to this mode of open-air . later, a landscape design contest was held. For several years, Chase made small, and quickly executed studies in Prospect Park, developed what came to be known as the William Merritt Chase was one of Brooklyn; and after moving to Manhattan “Greensward Plan”, inspired by principles the first artists to use Central Park he began to paint Central Park. Critic of English park and garden design, and as a subject for his paintings. Charles de Kay – the brother of New York this was selected by the Central Park He turned his attention to painter Helena de Kay – observed that Commission as the winning project. this area of New York when “[Chase] has hit upon a discovery which Twenty thousand labourers took part in he moved to the city at the is yet to be made by a very great proportion the construction process, which involved end of the 1880s. of the inhabitants of New York. He has moving four million square metres of discovered Central Park. Not that most earth and bringing in additional topsoil New York people do not know there is from New Jersey, since the original land such a place, and are not more or less proud was not of sufficient quality to support of it, but comparatively few of them ever the four million trees and eight hundred go into it, and when they do go, they rarely and sixteen different varieties of plants see anything”. Indeed, through his painting envisaged in the Greensward Plan. the artist succeeded in bringing to the The part of Central Park that is depicted foreground the first great public park in in Chase’s picture is a by-path running the United States, and turned each of his along the remaining foundation wall of scenes into a tribute to city parks as part Mount Saint Vincent, a convent for the of the North American environment. Sisters of Charity situated in the north- Towards the middle of the 19th century, east corner of the Park near 105th Street the New York Metropolitan Area had and Fifth Avenue. In 1847 the Roman A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 6

Catholic Order purchased the area that was the natural qualities of the park. The originally the site of McGown’s Tavern, foundation wall, but not the pathway that built in the 1750s. The convent, which is seen in the picture, still remains today. included a boarding school for several The models used by Merritt Chase were hundred female students, was incorporated his wife, Alice Gerson, whom he had mar- as park land in 1859 under Olmsted and ried in February of 1887, and their eldest Vaux’s development of Central Park. daughter, Alice Dieudonnée – nicknamed The building served briefly as a military Cosy – who was about two and a half at hospital during the Civil War, and then the time. She and her sister Dorothy were the old convent building reverted to a often painted by the artist. tavern that catered to the wealthy carriage William Merritt Chase was a key figure trade. Mount Saint Vincent burned to the of the New York art world during this ground in 1881, but was soon rebuilt as period. A teacher at the Art Students League, another saloon, now named the McGown’s and the founder of the New York School of Pass Tavern. It was torn down in 1917 Art, he was one of the most distinguished by the New York reform mayor, John tenants at the famous Tenth Street Studio Purroy Mitchel, who desired to maintain Building in .

[ROOM 30] had arrived in new york Sloan, and concluded that he must find a in 1904 following his friend and mentor way to publicly express his position of open , one of the fathers of rebellion. The show, which opened on 3 JOHN SLOAN American modernity, who had begun to February, 1908, exhibited works by Henri, teach at the New York School of Art. He Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, William James, Throbbing , was immediately attracted to the bustle Glackens, Ernest Lawson, , Madison Square, 1907 of the city – the crowds, the public spaces, and . It Oil on canvas, 66 x 81.5 cm the elevated trains, the busy life of avenues became one of the milestones in the birth of museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 761 (1979.2) and streets – which he began to depict in American modernity. Because of the his paintings. Working as an illustrator of Sloan’s work and the themes of the group for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The as a whole, in the mid 1830s The Eight were Philadelphia Press he had developed a keen renamed the . The work of eye that would allow him to depict with these painters implied a thematic, rather accurate detail and liveliness the day to than a stylistic, revolution in the history of day existence of some of the most popular American art. Henri encouraged Sloan districts in Manhattan. Like Henri, Sloan and his other pupils not to turn their back advocated a new kind of realism in North on their emotions, and to strive for new American art; both men wished to break means of artistic expression. The members away from the humdrum themes of the of the group were also responsible for National Academy of Design, and paint another of the most influential events contemporary life as the Impressionists of the period in the sphere of art: the had done earlier , in 1913, which introduced An event took place in New York in contemporary European avant-garde The streets of Manhattan offered 1908 which was to be a turning-point for movements to the United States. The John Sloan an endless spectacle North American art: the exhibition The International Exhibition of was of urban vistas and everyday Eight at the William on held at the armory of the National Guard’s events. His pictures, engravings 27th Street. The show became a gesture of Sixty-ninth Regiment, on Lexington and illustrations helped to define defiance aimed at the Academy by Robert Avenue in New York City, offering the the image of New York in the Henri and his inner circle. As a member of American public a sample of European public’s mind. the Academy’s jury, Henri was incensed at works of art together with exhibits by the constant rejections of the work of John American masters. The event became a A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 7

veritable cultural earthquake, leading to was then a neighbourhood of small houses many heated debates about the nature above which towered the , of modern art. In a cruelly ironic twist of or Fuller Building, built in 1902 and fate, the Armory Show sidelined the very painted by Sloan himself in his canvas artists who had helped to set it up, while Dust Storm, Fifth Avenue, now owned by confirming the triumphant advance of the the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Designed latest trends in French painting. by the great architect Daniel H. Burnham, In Throbbing Fountain John Sloan the Flatiron Building got its name from reveals to us a motif which the artist found its triangular shape, and was erected particularly captivating. A year before to spearhead the creation of a second painting the picture, he had already financial hub to the north of Wall Street. mentioned the famous New York square Following its inauguration, a curious and in his diary: “The fountain in Madison amusing phenomenon was discovered: Square, which men and women stare at the way in which the building channelled raptly, in some cases feeling its sensuous the winds created strong currents of air charm”. In 1906, Sloan and his wife had that became famous for lifting the skirts moved to 23rd Street West, near the spot of the ladies of the period. The building’s that is depicted in the picture. The artist revolutionary steel structure was covered strolled through Manhattan for several by a façade that blended in perfectly with hours every day, and frequently found its historical surroundings, and New inspiration in his own neighbourhood. Yorkers were captivated by the result. Madison Square district, whose name Sloan’s neighbourhood was also the site is associated with James Madison, fourth for the first two venues of the Madison president of the United States and the Square Garden, built in 1879 and 1890 main author of the country’s Constitution, respectively.

[ROOM 39] new york is a rich backdrop for any kind of artistic activity. Intellectuals, painters, musicians and film-makers all sought out the magic of this city. In Leaves of Grass (1855) Walt Whitman praised it Metropolis, 1916-1917 as “the acme of the Western world”. Jack Oil on canvas, 100 x 102 cm Kerouac made poetry out of the city’s life, museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 569 (1978.23) and latter-day writers and artists who have lived there or still do – Paul Auster, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe or Woody Allen – have “The air of Manhattan had felt the seduction of its indomitable spirit. something unexplainably exciting When Grosz arrived in New York he for me, something that spurred liked it much more than he’d been led to my work on. I was full of light, expect by the films he’d seen about the colour and joy.” george grosz city. But he had dreamed about it many years previously. Walter Mehring, who met Grosz in 1916, referred to the latter’s painting Metropolis as “Reminiscences of the Entrance to Manhattan”, owing perhaps to the fact that many of the preparatory drawings for the painting were imaginary renderings of New York. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 8

The Austrian poet Theodor Däubler, in later learned that a few days after sailing an early article about the painter, had from the Gestapo had come already noted that “his conception of in his search. The relief of escaping the the big city is really apocalyptic” when dung heap his native country and the rest describing a drawing of 1916 entitled of Europe had by now become gave the Memory of New York. artist the highest hopes. To Grosz, American cities were a In 1936 Grosz painted The Port of dream; he didn’t know them, but had New York. Although the ships and office come to love them through books. An buildings in the picture convey the bustle indefatigable reader since childhood of of trade, the artist does not stress the the novels of James Fenimore Cooper humming crowds of the great metropolis, (cowboys and Indians appear several but the spectacular grandeur of the city’s times in his paintings) Grosz idolised skyline. gangsters, and sometimes posed As was the case with so many other for friends wearing a gun and mobster hat. newcomers, the painter had been bewitched Americanism was in his case an expression by New York: “I patted myself on the of protest against German conservatism. back, albeit in my imagination... And after In 1914 he enlisted as a volunteer and boarding the fast elevator, which did not spent time in the trenches, an experience stop in its rapid ascent from the first to that was to mark his entire generation. the thirty-first floor, I felt I was floating in America became an enemy nation, its the clouds, and very pleased with myself. soldiers parading through after the ‘Not bad,’ I thought. ‘A splendid country, Armistice. But Grosz’s admiration for the this America...’ At forty-four, I was still United States was unshakeable, and in relatively young, and my dream was more 1916 even prompted him to change his alive than ever”. But this was no more name from Georg to George Grosz, which than a wish, since Grosz was unknown in he would use for the rest of his life. The America. His ironic fury gradually grew fascination of European intellectuals for more serene, and the biting style of his everything American stemmed from their Weimar and Berlin years disappeared, perception of America as a true symbol giving way to a dramatic change in the of modernity. artist’s American period. From a distance, In 1932 Grosz was invited to the United he observed the victory of Fascism and States as guest professor by the New York Nazism with bitterness, and realised Students League; a year later, he had they had confirmed his early presages of already taken up definite residence in the impending doom: the Second World War, country. Deprived of his German passport the Spanish Civil War, the concentration in 1938, he became an American citizen. camps and the death of friends. He accepted temporary employment In 1946, after living for more than a at a drawing school while waiting for decade in exile and experiencing serious commissions to start coming in from the financial difficulties, Grosz penned his big magazines – Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity memoirs. In 1958 he returned to Europe, Fair, The New Yorker, Esquire – which were to what was then Western Germany. He going through their golden period at the died on 6 July, 1959 in West Berlin, after time. He was famous for his illustrations falling down the stairs following a night in Germany and the whole of Europe, and of heavy drinking. made a lot of money from his work. In Metropolis, which had been included the United States, whose visual culture in a German public collection in the mid- was much more powerful and up-to-date, twenties, was sold by the Nazi regime to his success seemed to be guaranteed. He Curt Valentin, a German art dealer who returned once more to Germany to gather emigrated to America taking the picture up his family, sell his house and studio with him. Thus it came to pass that Grosz and liquidate his assets, before moving recovered his iconic painting in the city back to America to begin a new life. He of New York. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 9

[ROOM 40] the battery is a public park located on numerous elements of daily life, such as the southern tip of Manhattan Island, billboards announcing the ‘freak shows’ offering a privileged view of the port of on Coney Island, or signs announcing REGINALD MARSH New York. This part of the city is known cheap hotels and barber shops. The artist as The Battery since the 17th century, was endowed with an extremely keen Battery Park, ca. 1926 when the area was part of the Dutch sense of observation, a sharp wit and an Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 101.6 cm settlement of New Amsterdam and under enormous ease for making acute social carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the the protection of a ‘battery’ of cannons. It and satirical comments in his pictures of museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. ctb.1978.49 was here that the famous city life. The attention to detail exhibited fortress was erected during the War of 1812 in his work is a common characteristic of between the United States and Great the documentary style of artistic expression Britain. Before Ellis Island became the during the period. gate of entry for immigration into the Marsh had studied Fine Arts at Yale United States, Castle Clinton functioned University, where he collaborated as an as the immigrant reception centre; over illustrator on The Yale Record magazine. eight million people were processed Following his graduation in 1920 he there between 1855 and 1890. It is also worked doing freelance sketching in New the point of departure of the boats York, and from 1922 to 1925 became staff that leave for , where one illustrator on The Daily News, where he of the most important symbols of New published a daily column with vignettes York, the , is to be found. devoted to the theatre and other city scenes. In his work, Reginald Marsh The famous statue was a gift from the At the time Marsh also painted backdrops recorded scenes of daily life in the French people to the United States on for the Greenwich Village Follies theatre, streets of New York. Battery Park occasion of the anniversary of the country’s and had just worked with decorator Robert is one of his early oils, painted just independence. The colossal figure of a Edmond Jones on the design of sets for after his three-year period as woman, towering to a height of 150 feet, the Provincetown Players. His theatrical illustrator for the Daily News. was an interpretation of , the work and interests would clearly influence Roman goddess of freedom. Designed by the style of some of his paintings. sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, its The painting at the Museo Thyssen- assembly and internal structure were the Bornemisza shows a view of Battery responsibility of Gustave . Park with steamboats in the background. Because of its location, its history and Three women clad in the fashion of the the vistas it has to offer, Battery Park 1920s enter the sunny setting, where attracts many New Yorkers. It was the the effect of the wind is very accurately place chosen by Reginald Marsh to paint conveyed by the billowing smoke from one of his first oils on canvas. In his the tug boats in the harbour and one of paintings, drawings and photographs the the women holding on to her hat in the artist, who came from a well-to-do family, breeze. The picture is painted in the open always preferred to depict scenes from air, something Marsh would do in his the everyday life and leisure time of the early compositions, while in later work he working classes. His art transports us to relied on sketches and photographs that the New York of the 1920s and , and he took himself and greatly altered in the it was during this period that he painted creative process in his studio to produce The Bowery, Coney Island, the subway or results that were not literal copies, since 14th Street. Marsh’s depictions of burlesque the artist considered photographs to be shows, clubs, dance halls, crowded mere sketches, a kind of visual annotation beaches, and men and women strolling rather than a finished . The through the streets of Manhattan, became themes in his photographs fit into the immediately popular because they struck same documentary category as those of his a very familiar chord with New Yorkers. contemporaries Berenice Abbott, Dorothea His style, fresh and attentive to detail, was Lange and Walker Evans, but the use clearly influenced by his period as an Marsh made of his own photographic illustrator, and his paintings featured images for the purposes of painting is A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 10

closer to the technique of Ben Shahn or the indispensable master photographers Ralston Crawford. Although the artist of the time. In fact, three of Reginald never considered himself a photographer, Marsh’s photographs were included in the quality of his photographic work as a the exhibition 70 Photographers Look at reflection of an unrepeatable period in the New York, organised by Edward Steichen history of New York places him among at the in 1957.

[ROOM 40] was born in 1882 in 1884 to house the studios of artists, in Nyack, New York State. The small and among Hopper’s neighbours were town is located on the left side of the Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos and E. EDWARD HOPPER Hudson River, about twenty-five miles to E. Cummings. the north of New York City. He studied at Ensconced in the safety of his new Hotel Room, 1931 the New York School of Art under William studio, which was in part a retreat and in Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 165.7 cm Merritt Chase, John Sloan and Robert part a watch-tower, Hopper was to capture museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 594 (1977.110) Henri. Hopper travelled to Europe several the life of the bustling metropolis. From times, and soon developed an interest in his rooftop he could view Fifth Avenue Continental art and culture, which were two (where his paintings would be displayed of his passions. Among his other interests, for the first time at a show devoted to his some of his favourite themes included work) and it was here, at his workshop sailing, baseball, cycling, photography, and home in the Village, where most of Darwinism and Irish immigration. his canvases – including the one selected Hopper came to New York in 1908, here – were painted. Josephine posed for but did not take up permanent residence her husband in this apartment, in a rather in the city until 1910. His first studio was cold place, far from the open fire, which on 59th Street East, near the work-place of provided adequate lighting. Looking at his master Robert Henri, whose studio was the scene in Hotel Room we may almost located in the environs of the Queensboro fancy we find ourselves before a passage Bridge, an iconic site in New York which in Manhattan Transfer, the novel by John the artist painted in 1913. Scott Fitzgerald Dos Passos, that has been transformed referred to the Queensboro Bridge as “the into painting. The painter’s wife could be Jo Nivinson – Edward Hopper’s first promise of all the wonder and beauty playing the solitary, pensive character of wife – wrote in her diary that she in the world”, and film-maker Woody Allen Ellen, described in the second chapter of posed for Hotel Room in the couple’s would capture it on film in Manhattan, his the novel, while the room she sits in might studio at no. 3, Washington Square celebrated movie of 1979. However, Hopper well be one of the suites in the Breevort North, where the painter would was not interested in picture postcards, and Hotel, the establishment frequented by work and live until his death never painted Brooklyn Bridge, or the city’s New York’s bohemian set, which was in 1967. skyscrapers, or even a yellow cab. The artist demolished in 1954. preferred freight trains, the Manhattan Edward Hopper only left his New Bridge loop or the unknown restaurants York home to spend his summers in on Greenwich Avenue. New England. He built himself a house At the 1913 Armory Show Hopper sold in Cape Cod, and this became his retreat his first painting, Sailing, for 250 dollars by the sea, which he alternated with his to a cloth manufacturer from Manhattan. Manhattan apartment. That same year he moved to his second Hopper was a tall, thin man; he could studio, at his home on the north side have been a Paris flâneur, donning his hat of Washington Square, in an area that and mumbling some excuse before going had been built in the Greek Revival style out to lose himself in the streets of New in the 1830s. The building in which he York. He fixed his gaze on windows to took up residence had been refurbished capture the fleeting moment, and explored A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 11

the loneliness of an American life that he Manhattan’s Whitney Museum of Amer- then depicted in images imbued with a ican Art houses the Hopper Legacy, a narrative sense. His great loves were the collection that was donated by the painter’s theatre and picture houses, and during heirs in 1970 and includes 3,150 paintings, periods of inactivity he would take refuge drawings, studies and etchings, together in his addiction to noir films of the thirties with the artist’s diaries. At the same time, and forties. “When I was unable to paint I the city of New York itself is a constant would spend a week or more at the cinema,” reminder of Hopper’s painting, whose he used to say. Edward Hopper is one of imprint is present wherever we cast our the artists who have exerted the greatest eye, from the High Line elevated park to influence on modern film; we may find his the old tracks of former trains. trace in the work of Alfred Hitchcock, Although Hopper visited Paris three Abraham Polonsky or Terrence Malick, and times, and was a tireless traveller, his his pictures themselves are almost perfect home and his world were always in New movie stills, cinematographic compositions York, the city he knew best and most that reveal his passion for films. loved.

[ROOM 41] personal painting style which transmits the dynamic qualities of the huge city. Grand Central Terminal represented the frantic bustle of a growing town. The station had been built to replace and Grand Central Terminal, 1915 update the old depot after a horrific Oil on canvas, 152.5 x 101.6 cm accident involving two trains that collided museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 782 (1973.57) in the Park Avenue tunnel and caused the death of seventy people. The tragic event led the New York authorities to impose a definite ban on steam engines within the city, and to the creation of a power-driven Between 1913 and 1915, Max Weber railway system which required the whole painted several canvases that made network, and the terminal station itself, use of Cubist and Futurist influences to be completely rebuilt. The new terminal to convey the acceleration of city life opened its doors to the public at midnight in New York. One of them is the on the 1st of February, 1913, and was artist’s depiction of New York’s described by the newspapers as one of emblematic Grand Central Station. the “glories of the metropolis”. The station also provided renewed commercial thrust to the Midtown Manhattan area, where many new shops, restaurants, offices and born in russia but a naturalised hotels opened up for business. The american citizen, Weber was one of competition for the design of the new the great synthesisers of European art main building was won by Reed & Stem, innovations at the beginning of the 20th who were in charge of all the functional century. The artist, who had emigrated to features of the project for the wealthy New York with his parents when he was Vanderbilt family, the owners of the ten years old, completed his American station, while the Warren & Wetmore training thanks to a fruitful stay in Paris, architecture studio were responsible for and managed to achieve a unique and quite designing the Beaux Arts building that is A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 12

seen from the street. The result was a great curvilinear frontispiece that rounds off the architectural achievement that is divided pattern on each side, and the clock with into two storeys, both of them below the of Mercury at the crown of ground, with 26 railway tracks on the the whole structure. Weber’s aim in the lower level and 41 tracks on the upper painting was to plastically express the level. The terminal includes a total of 44 feeling of sheer energy and speed of the platforms, marble floorings, sumptuous rush hour by means of an interpretation chandeliers, and a central dome, decorated of the building’s façade. The picture’s by French painter Paul César Helleu, style evidences the impact upon the artist representing a view of the of ’s Nude Descending a against the night sky. Staircase, No. 2, which Weber had seen The Vanderbilts, who had made their at the Armory Show in 1913. The formal fortune in shipping and railways, spared Cubist reduction of the human figure in no expense: the enormous Main Concourse Duchamp’s canvas becomes extremely (125 feet high) was covered with marble dynamic when captured in the successive from Tennessee, held up by 1,500 columns postures adopted by the body as it descends and reinforced with steel, and caused a the stairs; the painting was considered the sensation among New Yorkers. The gran- most scandalous exhibit at the celebrated diose architectural undertaking, which show, and deeply affected Weber. Grand also houses shops and restaurants like Central Terminal also displays technical Oyster Bay (also inaugurated in 1913, and similarities to ’s The North- whose dome-shaped ceilings are the work South (1912) depicting a bustling metro of Valencian architect Rafael Guastavino) station in Paris. immediately became a source of inspira- Weber was one of the more than three tion for photographers, writers, painters hundred artists represented at the Armory and film-makers. Audiences have been Show, in addition to being personally thrilled by the famous setting in films like committed to the avant-garde and to bold Brian de Palma’s The Untouchables and and innovative circles such as the one Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful North by surrounding photographer and art dealer Northwest. The station’s waiting-room is Alfred Stieglitz, whose Gallery 291 had where Holden Caulfield, the main char- become a meeting point for artists and acter in J. D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher intellectuals, and a place of exchange in the Rye, decides to spend the night devoted to creativity and theoretical during his escapade in New York, and elaboration. With Max Weber’s initial it also served as the backdrop for one of collaboration, and that of Edward Steichen the creations of the well-known choreog- and Marius de Zayas a little later, Stieglitz rapher, Merce Cunningham. organised the first exhibitions ever to Max Weber’s painting Grand Central display the works of Matisse, Cézanne, Terminal focuses on the façade of the Picasso, Braque, Rousseau or Severini building, which dominated downtown in North America. Like Weber in his Manhattan before the arrival of the painting, Stieglitz in his photographs city’s skyscrapers. Built in limestone, the captured and conveyed the vitality and façade features three great arches that are sheer energy of turn-of-the-century New separated by paired Corinthian columns York, and transformed it into the very supporting the entablature, the slightly image of modernity. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 13

[ROOM 41] 1915 was a significant year in the At the time, New York’s Greenwich life of . After being called Village was one of the places where new to arms and discharged some time later, ideas met and came together. John Reed ALBERT GLEIZES he married , the daughter paid tribute to the famous Manhattan of Jules Roche (a French politician, the neighbourhood in his 1913 poem The Day In Port, 1917 godfather of ). The couple, in Bohemia. These were the wild days, Oil and sand on cardboard, 153 x 120 cm who were committed pacifists, managed when Duchamp, Gertrude S. Drick and museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 555 (1975.40) to get away to New York for what was to a merry band of assorted subversives have been a three-month stay and lasted brought the movement to America, for three years, interspersed with trips to and at one stage mounted the arch in and the . Washington Square to proclaim the The Gleizes were made welcome in ‘Independent Republic of Greenwich New York by and Marcel Village’. Albert Gleizes, whose nature was Duchamp. The latter, having by then a little more subdued, left the group and adapted perfectly to the frantic pace of the moved to a quieter place in Pelham, about city, introduced them to a circle of collectors ten miles from New York. that included Louis and Walter Arensberg. During these years Gleizes painted a The Gleizes found accommodation in the series of vistas of the city, and especially of same building as Louise Carese, who told the port area. In Port is not only a manifesto the amusing story of how one day, at the for , but also a tribute to two cities. break of dawn, after a long and lively The painter did a lot of preparatory work, night, Marcel Duchamp ate a leg of lamb including four vertical compositions taken from the cold-box in her apartment; produced in New York between 1916 the meat belonged to Gleizes, who had no and 1918, and obviously invested a great such refrigerating conveniences in his deal of effort in the picture. own home and kept his food in Carese’s When speaking of some of the New apartment. After devouring the leg of York references of In Port, the suspension lamb, the bone became a readymade on cables of the Brooklyn Bridge – an icon In his painting In Port, which Duchamp imprinted his gratitude of the city and one of the most beautiful Albert Gleizes pays Cubist tribute by leaving it at the door of the Gleizes bridges in the world – immediately come to the modern metropolis through with a couple of banknotes attached to it. to mind. Originally designed by Prussian a mixture and superimposition Everyone except the Gleizes themselves engineer John Augustus Roebling, the of images of the port of found this episode highly amusing; the construction of the bridge was taken and the city of New York. couple did not quite appreciate Duchamp’s over by his son, Washington, following excesses and eccentricities, as was made Roebling’s death after an accident at obvious at the time by Albert Gleizes’s Fulton Landing in 1869. Washington, tendentious comments regarding the however, was paralysed as a result of a former’s Nude Descending a Staircase. gas embolism, which he suffered while In New York, as Bernard Marcade tells helping with the excavation work in us, Albert Gleizes exhibited a somewhat the river basin, and lay prostrate in bed condescending and almost patronising for most of the duration of the work. attitude to Marcel Duchamp, who once Washington Roebling’s wife, Emily attempted to put an end to Albert’s Warren Roebling, then took charge of continual reprimands and remarks by supervising the work, and was in fact the replying, “My dear Gleizes: if I didn’t first person to cross the bridge upon its drink so much alcohol I would have inauguration in 1883. As ill luck would committed suicide long ago”. In spite have it, a tragedy occurred during the of the differences between them, in opening ceremony, when several thousand 1917 Duchamp invited the couple to his people, including President Chester A. thirtieth birthday party, together with Arthur, crowded onto the structure. Picabia, Leo Stein and Roche, as recorded Someone shouted that the bridge was by painter in her about to collapse, causing a stampede in canvas La fête à Duchamp. which twelve people died. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 14

In spite of these disasters, the bridge The ship’s prow in Gleizes’s painting is soon became an endless source of inspi- a reminder of the many vessels from all over ration to poets, writers, and painters like the world that docked in the port of New Albert Gleizes. It has also been – since York. That was indeed the final destination the days of silent movies – one of the of the Titanic when it left Southampton most frequently filmed constructions in in 1912. Benjamin Guggenheim, the father the history of the cinema, and is depict- of , perished in the ed in numerous films ranging from Ted shipwreck of the famous transatlantic. The Wilde’s Speedy to Martin Scorsese’s latter’s brother, Solomon Guggenheim, Gangs of New York. bought this picture in 1930.

[ROOM 43] the second world war had driven late work seems to be a tribute to the to London in 1938, and orthogonal design of Manhattan. two years later – aghast at the bombings Manhattan Island’s original structure PIET MONDRIAN of the British capital, and the invasion of dates from the 1811 Commissioner’s Plan. Paris by the Nazis – he decided to accept The plan represents a deviation of 28.9 New York City, 3 (unfinished), 1941 the invitation to America from his friend degrees from the cardinal points, leading Oil, pencil, chalk and coloured paper tape on canvas, Harry Holtzman, to whom he wrote: “I’m to one of the most marvellous phenomena 117 x 110 cm ready to come”. On 23 September, 1940, of the city, when the sun aligns with the museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 679 (1983.17) Mondrian boarded the Samaria, on the street layout twice a year, and creates Cunard Line, which left from the port of what is known as ‘Manhattanhenge’. The Liverpool and arrived in New York on plot of the streets and avenues in New the 3rd of October. Piet Mondrian would York, the size of its blocks and the height spend the last years of his life in New of its buildings, derived from a series of York. The exodus of European artists town planning and development criteria during the war was massive; in their new that contributed to the unique makeup physical and intellectual environment, of the city. they all experienced a transformation that This uniform mesh was developed changed the nature of their production. on the basis of a crosswise pattern of In 1941, soon after his arrival in avenues, running from north to south, America, Mondrian gave a written account and streets, running from east to west. of his artistic credo: “The metropolis The resulting grid determined the size reveals itself as an imperfect but concrete of the city’s blocks. The entire network determination of space. It constitutes, in then adapted to the shape of the island, itself, the expression of modern life. It producing 12 avenues and 155 streets. produces : the definition of New York also experienced a spectac- the splendour of dynamic motion. [...] A ular process of evolution in the third Piet Mondrian died in New York work of art is only ‘art’ inasmuch as it dimension. The erection of ever higher in 1942. His exile in America defines life in its one immutable aspect: buildings, encouraged by technological happened late in his life; if it hadn’t pure vitality”. discoveries and advances, led to a free- been for the war, he would probably The giant quadrangle of the city, which for-all, apparently limitless race to the sky never have taken the jump across spread over more than twelve miles which in fact had to be curbed through the Atlantic. Mondrian was almost covering the island like a rational maze regulation in 1916. Skyscrapers changed seventy at the time; yet against of streets and avenues, is transformed in the appearance of the city forever. all odds, Manhattan changed Mondrian’s painting into a grid of straight However, it was not only town planning, the way he painted. lines, rectangles and primary colours in the architecture and the city lights of Manhattan series entitled Studio-Wall Compositions, that seduced Mondrian. He was also an which was found after the artist’s death enthusiast of music and dancing. The artist in his last studio, on 59th Street. All his had an enormous collection of jazz records, A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 15

regularly attended Josephine Baker’s Ballets where the best musicians of the time Nègres, and was a passionate follower performed. He had already based another of the Ballet Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. of his earlier paintings, Foxtrot (1929-1930), An admirer of the films of Fred Astaire on a style of dance, and was the first artist and Ginger Rogers, his musical leanings to explore the influence of black music were described by his friend Theo van and jazz bands on art. Dance probably Doesburg’s widow as follows: “It is well served as a stimulus to his depiction of known that Mondrian was a devotee of the frantic pace of life through the use social dancing, and had left the waltz of adhesive tape and primary colours behind to take foxtrot and tango lessons; on white canvases. The shiny surface of whatever the music that was being played, these materials created a contrast that he would perform his dance steps in an highlighted other textures in the paintings. extremely personal and highly stylised When attached and detached, the tapes fashion”. also produced sounds in synchronisation The bustling metropolis and the frantic with the movements of the body. pace of the city are conveyed in the picture In 1942, Arnold Newman photographed Mondrian devoted to the boogie-woogie, Piet Mondrian in his studio at no. 353, a fast, danceable form of blues that was 56th Street East. A room without furniture, performed on the piano and reached New an easel and a drawing table is all that York in 1938, after emerging from the we see. Mondrian had whitewashed the South of the United States. The new style walls, upon which only hung red, yellow caused a furore following its introduction and blue-coloured squares of paper. The by John Hammond in the course of a artist proudly displays his work in New famous concert at the Carnegie Hall. York, a city that was full of attractions Mondrian was a frequent patron of the for a painter whose art would explode Cafe Society Downtown, in the Village, after his arrival in the Promised Land.

[ROOM 46] during the 1940s and 1950s the world capital of the avant-garde changed its location. Paris, which for a long time had MARK ROTHKO been at the centre of the most radical and innovative transformations of artistic Untitled (Green on Maroon), 1961 modernity, was eclipsed by the New on canvas, 258 x 229 cm York of the abstract expressionists. This museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 729 (1982.50) surprising change came about as a result of the innovations of a unique generation New York was the birthplace of artists; a series of masters of different of a movement which would nationalities who came together in the change the course of modern great city and shattered established norms art history: American abstract and conventions, spearheading a new . Mark Rothko and decisive stage in 20th century art. was one of its leading Mark Rothko, , Willem de representatives, and the first Kooning, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, New York School artist to have Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann and Robert a solo exhibition devoted to Motherwell were some of the artists who him at the MoMA. broke with the past through an art form that sank its roots in the European avant- garde. All of them lived through a key period in history, and embraced the legacy A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 16

of the artists and intellectuals who had The canvas at the Thyssen-Bornemisza arrived from Europe in their flight from was painted in 1961, the year the MoMA the Nazis. With their differing styles, devoted a solo exhibition to Mark Rothko which in some cases shared common in New York. The inauguration in 1929 ground, the members of what came to be of the Museum of Modern Art, together known as the New York School of painting with the Armory Show in 1913 and the celebrated in their work the individuality opening of Stieglitz’s Gallery 291, was and freedom of the artist. crucial for the creation of a breeding Manhattan became the epicentre of the ground in which the American avant- New York avant-garde. Meetings that went garde might develop. At the end of the on until the wee hours of the morning 1920s, the need for an institution that were the norm at the Cedar Bar, on was solely devoted to modern art, and University Place, in Greenwich Village. It that broke away from the conservative was at the Cedar, and the Artist’s Club – policies of traditional museums, became founded in 1949 – where the passionate clearly apparent. It was at this time that masters of drank, Lillie P. Bliss, Cornelius Sullivan, John talked shop, organised shows and even Rockefeller Jr., A. Conger Goodyear, Paul came to blows, carried away by the very Sachs, Frank Crowninshield and Josephine same impulsive nature that gave life to Boardman Crane decided to come together their art. Rothko was the star of postwar and create the MoMA, which started out New York, although his temperament was under the brilliant management of Alfred slightly more subdued and he never felt H. Barr Jr. Their aim was to help audiences too comfortable in rowdy places like the to understand modern art, and equip Cedar. In the world of art his painting was New York with a great museum devoted also somewhat removed from the to . The response of spontaneous, gesturally dramatic work of New Yorkers was so enthusiastic that his contemporaries. Rothko saw his pictures the museum had to be moved three times as drama; as the depiction of a timeless over the following ten years, in successive tragedy. His paintings, of great spiritual attempts to find a site that was big enough intensity, stir the viewer with a strong for its needs, until it finally came to rest feeling of emotion, as if they were an in the building it still occupies today in invitation to contemplative meditation. Midtown Manhattan. Robert Rosenblum characterised Rothko’s As important as the creation of the painting as “the abstraction of the sublime”. MoMA, in terms of advancing modernity The artist believed that pure colour was in New York, and especially as regards the best vehicle for the expression of the dissemination of American abstract emotion, since it acted directly on the soul, , was the activity carried stirring deep feelings within the beholder. out by Peggy Guggenheim and Betty In order to further increase the intensity Parsons at their respective galleries. The of the encounter, the way in which works Art of This Century Gallery, designed by of art were exhibited was of key importance; Frederick Kiesler for the niece of Solomon an accurate display could heighten the Guggenheim and housed at number 30, experience. Within abstract expressionism 57th Street West, exhibited work by such his work is associated with what critic masters as Rothko, Hofmann and Pollock. Clement Greenberg called “colour field The artist, dealer and collector Betty painting”, a form that is very different Parsons also used her gallery, inaugurated from the gestural nature and the dynamism in 1946, to promote emerging art and offer of Pollock’s or De Kooning’s action painting. her enthusiastic protection to new artists. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 17

[ROOM 48]

RICHARD ESTES

Nedick’s, 1970 Oil on canvas, 121.9 x 167.6 cm carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. ctb.1993.10

People’s Flowers, 1971 Oil on canvas, 162.6 x 92.7 cm carmen thyssen-bornemisza collection on loan at the museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. ctb.1975.24

Telephone Booths, 1967 Acrylic on masonite, 122 x 175.3 cm museo thyssen-bornemisza, madrid, inv. 539 (1977.93)

The geometry of the streets richard estes is famous for his “Always a pleasure” – were known to all and brownstone buildings, the of Manhattan’s Downtown New Yorkers, and the restaurant’s char- reflections in shop windows, and districts, whose acteristic white signboards with orange the diners and telephone booths depiction in his paintings reveals his lettering on them were exhibited in the of Manhattan make their deep knowledge of the city. The artist was town’s most busy streets. Nedick’s soon appearance on our fascinated by the plate- windows of became an institution in Manhattan, journey through the work New York cafeterias and the reflections whose dwellers considered it as famous of Richard Estes. The master of that trace themselves upon them. He sets as Nathan’s, on Coney island. According photographic realism transforms up a visual play between the interior and to The Daily News, the establishment’s the streets of New York into his the exterior of establishments, and pays fame thrived on tales such as the story favourite theme, and like a latter- great attention to the signs of businesses, about a young Gregory Peck subsisting day vedutista invites the viewer to in which brand names and trademarks on the restaurant’s typical nine-cent stroll through a city where time blend and mix in vivid colours. breakfast during his lean years as a young, seems to have come to a halt. Nedick’s, painted in 1970, focuses aspiring actor. Nedick’s sponsored the on the façade of one of the restaurants New York Knicks, and sports commen- belonging to a chain of fast-food outlets tator Marty Glickman’s slogan on the created in the city of New York. The radio, every time the team scored a point, chain had branches in different American became equally well-known in the city: cities, and it became immensely popular “Good... like Nedick’s!”. When speaking among New Yorkers for its orange juice of Nedick’s, another inevitable reference and its hot-dogs. The name of the brand is of course Martin Scorsese’s film Taxi was a fusion between the surnames of Driver, shot in Manhattan, in which the its creators, Robert Neely and Orville restaurant’s brightly-lit neon sign appears Dickinson, who opened the first Nedick’s in different locations of the city. restaurant on the ground floor of the Exhibited in the same room of the Hotel Bartholdi, on 23rd Street and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, another Broadway. The chain’s mottoes – “Good two works by Richard Estes transport food is never expensive at Nedick’s” and the visitor to the streets of Manhattan. A Day in New York THEMATIC TOURS 18

People’s Flowers (1971) carries us to Sixth the original emblem of the chain featured Avenue and 27th Street, to a flower-shop a rooster, but Macy subsequently decided that no longer exists. When looking at the to replace it with the famous star, inspired New York of Richard Estes we are made by the tattoo he had traced on his arm aware of the artist’s visual discoveries during his sailing days aboard whalers. within the city, while at the same time The department-store’s success resulted witnessing the development, details and from a number of innovative sales and changes of the urban landscape. The advertising techniques that transformed starting point for the composition of his the whole industry, attracting swarms of painting Telephone Booths (1967) was customers. Among other novelties, Macy’s a series of photographs that the artist introduced a single-price system that did took of a row of public phone booths on away with haggling, and newspaper Broadway, Sixth Avenue and 34th Street. adverts announcing the exact price of The effect of the light striking the surface goods. Macy’s was the first business to be of the picture creates a game of mirror- granted a license to sell alcoholic drinks in images, refractions and reflections through the city of New York, and also pioneered which the artist seems to be challenging the figure of an employee dressed up as us to capture the infinite possibilities of Father Christmas to greet children during contemplation. A close examination of the the festive season. scene and the reflections it contains reveal Like Jimmy Herf, the character in Dos typical New York details emerging from Passos’s Manhattan Transfer, Richard the painting: the famous Manhattan yellow Estes traverses New York giving us the cabs; the characteristic “Don’t Walk” sign opportunity to rediscover the city through at a pedestrian crossing; a fragment of the his works of art. To use the words of logo of Macy’s department-store, another Sandro Parmiggiani, viewing his paintings iconic establishment of the city. Created causes “the resurgence inside of us of by Rowland Hussey Macy, who opened passage upon passage from the many the first Macy’s store on 28 October, 1858, pages written about New York”. 19 MUSEUM PLAN

SECOND FLOOR 1 Early Italian Painting 2 Gothic Painting 3 Early Netherlandish Painting 4 The Quattrocento (Italian art) 5 The Portrait (Early Renaissance) 6 The Villahermosa Gallery 7 Italian Painting (16th century) 8 9 German Painting (16th century) 10 Netherlandish Painting (16th century) 11 Titian, Tintoretto, Bassano, El Greco 12 Caravaggio and the Early Baroque 13 14 15 Italian, French and Spanish Painting (17th century) 16 17 18 Italian Painting (18th century) 19 Flemish Painting (17th century) 20 Dutch Painting (Italianate movements) 21 Dutch Painting (17th century: portraits) A Italian Painting (17th century) B Flemish and Dutch Painting (17th century) C Views and Landscapes Gallery D 18 th-century Painting E-F 19 th-century American Painting FIRST FLOOR G Naturalism and the Rural World H Early Impressionism

22 23 24 25 26 Dutch Painting (17th century: scenes of daily life, interiors and landscapes) 27 Still Lifes (17th century) 28 From the Rococo to Neoclassicism (18th-century painting) 29 30 American Painting (19th century) 31 European Painting (19th century, from Romanticism to Realism) 32 Impressionist Painting 33 Post-impressionist Painting 34 Fauve Painting 35 36 37 Expressionist Painting (20th century) 38 Expressionist Painting (the Blue Rider group) 39 Expressionist Painting 40 Expressionist Painting (New Objectivity) J American Impressionism K Late Impressionism L Gauguin and Post-impressionism (1) M Post-impressionism (2) N German Expressionism O GROUND FLOOR P Cubism and information ticket desk 41 42 43 44 The Experimental Avant-gardes cloakroom 45 The Synthesis of the Modern (Europe) gift shop-bookshop wheelchair lift to 46 The Synthesis of the Modern (USA) basement level 47 48 Late . The Figurative Tradition and cafeteria-restaurant

ENTRANCE

Some works may not be displayed in their normal location if they are on loan, being restored or in a temporary exhibition