Scenes of American Life Docks at the Telfair Museum

Savannah, industrial seaport and tourist center, welcomes Scenes of America Life: Treasures of the Smithsonian American Art Museum at the Telfair Museum of Art September 12–November 12, 2000. 

Are you thinking, "This doesn't look like Savannah"? If so, you're absolutely right. This painting depicts another East Coast seaport.

Kingston Point Landing in New York, where Karl Fortess painted Island Dock Yard, was a busy site of shipping and commerce. Although scenes of American industrial activity were often portrayed in the 1930s as emblems of hope in a jobless era, Fortess evoked hard times by choosing gray skies and a dark palette.

Source: Virginia Mecklenburg. Scenes from American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Karl Fortess, 1907 Belgium–1993 USA, Island Dock Yard, about 1934, oil, 32 1/4 x 48 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor.