The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Arts and Architecture UNSETTLED MASSES: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN THE ART OF NEW YORK CITY, 1929–1941 A Dissertation in Art History by Emily A. Schiller © 2016 Emily A. Schiller Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2016 The dissertation of Emily A. Schiller was reviewed and approved* by the following: Nancy Locke Associate Professor of Art History Dissertation Co-Adviser Co-Chair of Committee Leo G. Mazow Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator Head of the Department of American Art Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Dissertation Co-Adviser Co-Chair of Committee Joyce Henri Robinson Curator, Palmer Museum of Art Affiliate Associate Professor of Art History Craig Zabel Associate Professor of Art History Head of the Department of Art History Anne Rose Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT During the Great Depression and World War II, public transportation thrived as an alternative to costly travel by railroads or private cars. This dissertation uses depictions of mass transit as points of departure into contextual examinations of three artists who repeatedly used passengers as subjects: Reginald Marsh (1898–1954), Donald Freeman (1908–1978), and Walker Evans (1903–1975). I argue that travel imagery attests to mobility as a common experience—an aspect of American life that viewers would recognize. Through a close examination of representations of mobility, it becomes clear that the motif appealed to these artists because it was simultaneously common and complicated—implicitly moving but explicitly stationary. As such, New York City’s commuters could convey social commentary, cultural observations, or artistic declarations. Marsh moved away from the specificity of his 1930s works and populated his transit settings with solitary female passengers with similar features, poses, and expressions. Freeman’s self-published magazine Newsstand demonstrates the close relationship between mass transit, mass media, and artists’ pursuit of democratic formats. Analysis of Evans’s methods and editorial decisions for his multi-year subway portraiture series highlights his concepts of candidness, anonymity, and truth. While previous studies have used art to illustrate subway histories, I focus on interwar visual culture to examine transit’s significance in light of American Scene paintings, documentary photography, New Deal arts programs, and commercial publications. Primary sources provide the necessary information to trace the artists’ urban movements and public perception of transit modes. Scholarship on the experience of train travel in the nineteenth century complements recent developments in mobilities studies as an interdisciplinary pursuit, an approach that beneficially interweaves topics previously considered insular. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures v Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 A Nation on the Move 5 Characteristics of Transit Imagery 7 Expansion Underground, Destruction Overhead 9 The New Deal for Visual Arts 14 Three Cases Studies 18 Daumier, A Transportation Trailblazer 20 Historiography 23 Chapter One. Reginald Marsh 39 Mapping Marsh’s Urban Routes 40 Inside Marsh’s Jokes 45 New York City as American and Marsh as a Regionalist 48 Influential Scenes of Travelers 51 Marsh’s Subway Frieze 56 Thinning the Crowds of Urban Commuters 58 Textual Encounters 64 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—Marsh’s Female Passengers 67 Chapter Two. Don Freeman 86 Mapping Freeman 90 Mass Transportation, Mass Communication 92 Leaves from a Gotham Sketchpad 98 Views of Passengers and Passengers’ Views 105 Newsstand in New Contexts 112 Chapter Three. Walker Evans 129 Evans’s Early Career 130 Candid Cameras and Unposed Portraits 136 Technique and Design 142 Few Texts are Chosen 147 “Citizenry” in Context 152 Subway Noise 159 Conclusion 180 Appendix A: Map of Lower Manhattan 184 Appendix B: Chronology of Reginald Marsh’s Transit Images (1928–1941) 185 Appendix C: Publication History of Don Freeman’s Newsstand 188 Appendix D: Chronology of Walker Evans’s Subway Photographs and Events 189 Related to the Creation or Publication of Evans’s Subway Portrait Series Bibliography 191 iv LIST OF FIGURES Introduction Figure 0.1 James Penney, Subway, 1932. Lithograph, 12 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches. 33 Edition of 10. New-York Historical Society. Figure 0.2 John M. August Will, Proposed Arcade Railway – Under Broadway, 34 view near Wall Street, c. 1868. Lithograph, 17 7/8 x 23 1/8 inches, Museum of the City of New York, 29.100.2400. Figure 0.3 Alfred Stieglitz, The Terminal, 1893. Gelatin silver print, 3 9/16 x 4 35 1/2 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.3.75. Published in Camera Work, No. 36 (October 1911). Figure 0.4 Dorothea Lange, Toward Los Angeles, California, March 1937. 36 Nitrate negative, 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches. Library of Congress, LC- USF34-016317-E. Figure 0.5 Honoré Daumier, Interior of an Omnibus: Between a Drunk and a 37 Butcher, 1839. Number 8 of the series Types Parisiens, 1839–43. Lithograph, 6 3/8 x 9 5/8 inches. Figure 0.6 Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, c. 1862–64. Oil on 38 canvas, 25 3/4 x 35 1/2 inches. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 29.100.129. Chapter One. Reginald Marsh Figure 1.1 Reginald Marsh, Why Not Use the ‘L’?, 1930. Oil and tempera on 71 canvas mounted on composition board, 36 1/8 × 48 1/8 inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, 31.293. Figure 1.2 Reginald Marsh, Subway Sunbeams (four examples: Catching the 72 Bronx Express, Concentration, Melting Pot, and Taking the Chambers Street Curve), c. 1922–25. Reproduced in the New York Daily News. Reginald Marsh Papers, scrapbook 3, clippings 1920–28, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Figure 1.3 Reginald Marsh, The El, c. 1928. Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches. 73 Whitney Museum of American Art, Felicia Meyer Marsh Bequest, 80.31.9. v Figure 1.4 Comparison between Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, 74 c.1862–64, fig. 0.6, and Reginald Marsh, The El, c. 1928, fig. 1.3 (digitally reversed). Figure 1.5 John Sloan, Reading in the Subway, 1926. Etching, 4 15/16 × 3 7/8 75 inches, Edition of 100. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, 26.30.159. Figure 1.6 Thomas Hart Benton, City Activities with Subway from America 76 Today, 1930–31. Egg tempera with oil glazing over Permalba on a gesso ground on linen mounted to wood panels with a honeycomb interior, 92 x 134 1/2 inches. One of ten panels. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of AXA Equitable, 2012.478b. Figure 1.7 Reginald Marsh, Three illustrations for the New Yorker, October 5, 77 1929, 20–21. [Times Square shown in upper left. Interborough Subway 3 A.M. shown at bottom.] Figure 1.8 Reginald Marsh, Interborough Subway 3 A.M. Illustration for the New 78 Yorker, October 5, 1929, 20–21. Figure 1.9 Reginald Marsh, The Subway, c. 1930. Oil and tempera on canvas, 36 79 1/8 × 48 inches. (Also known as People Seated and Standing in Subway.) Whitney Museum of American Art, Felicia Meyer Marsh Bequest, 80.31.8. Figure 1.10 Reginald Marsh, Subway Express, 1929. Oil, 39 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches. 80 (Also known as Interborough Subway and Peacox Declared Sane.) Current location unknown. Color reproduction from Art in America 53, no. 4 (April 1965): 94. Figure 1.11 Reginald Marsh, 500,000 Czechs on Nazi Border, 1938. Tempera on 81 cradled Masonite, 24 x 18 inches. Sale 2707, Lot 61 at Christie’s New York, American Art, May 23, 2013. Figure 1.12 Reginald Marsh, Hitler Escapes, 1939. Watercolor, 40 x 26 inches. 82 Current location unknown. Reginald Marsh Papers, album volume 4, folder 17, 1938–40, frame 9, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Figure 1.13 Albert Potter, Modern Music, 1933–36. Linoleum cut on paper, 10 1/2 83 x 14 1/2 inches. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Irving Potter, 1989.11.1. vi Figure 1.14 Fritz Eichenberg, The Subway, 1934. Wood engraving on paper, 6 1/4 84 x 4 3/4 inches. Smithsonian American Art Museum, purchase, 1981.12.4. Figure 1.15 Reginald Marsh, Easter on the IRT, April 14, 1941. Maroger medium, 85 15 x 18 inches. Current location unknown. Reginald Marsh Papers, Album volume 5, folder 21, 1940–44, frame 4, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Chapter Two. Don Freeman Figure 2.1 Don Freeman, Freedom of the Press, 1936. Lithograph, 10 x 13 1/4 116 inches. Edition of 25. Reproduced in Newsstand 03, March 1937. Figure 2.2 James Penney, Subway—Interior, 1933. Gouache and watercolor with 117 newspaper collage, 17 3/4 x 21 7/8 inches. Sale 2354, Lot 105 at Swann Galleries, American Art, June 12, 2014. Figure 2.3 Don Freeman, Bow to My Subscribers, c. 1938. Offset lithograph. 118 Reproduced in Newsstand 06, April 1938. All Newsstand images are approximately 10 x 8 inches and were released in editions of 200 or more. Figure 2.4 Don Freeman, Pale Face, c. 1939. Offset lithograph. Reproduced in 119 Newsstand 09, August 1939. All Newsstand images are approximately 10 x 8 inches and were released in editions of 200 or more. Figure 2.5 Don Freeman, Crown Trouble, c. 1939. Offset lithograph. 120 Reproduced in Newsstand 09, August 1939. All Newsstand images are approximately 10 x 8 inches and were released in editions of 200 or more.