Workers Houses, Flushing Bay

Philip Evergood, Workers Houses, Flushing Bay, 1935-1945, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arnold and Augusta Newman, 1982.130
Copied Philip Evergood, Workers Houses, Flushing Bay, 1935-1945, oil on canvas, 18 x 28 in. (45.7 x 71.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arnold and Augusta Newman, 1982.130

Artwork Details

Title
Workers Houses, Flushing Bay
Artist
Date
1935-1945
Location
Dimensions
18 x 28 in. (45.7 x 71.1 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Arnold and Augusta Newman
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Architecture — boat
  • Landscape — coast
  • Waterscape — bay — Flushing Bay
  • Architecture Exterior — domestic — house
Object Number
1982.130
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1982.130

Artwork Description

Many of Philip Evergood’s images protested the exploitation of America’s laborers, but this painting has a different quality. It focuses on the idea of home and community in the working-class neighborhood of Flushing Bay, in Queens. The settlement is not prosperous, but each house has its own plot of land and a few trees to soften the landscape. Smoke billowing from chimneys echoes the stacks of factories in the distance, where the people of Flushing Bay earn their living. The artist gave the painting to photographer Arnold Newman, and Newman later recalled his visit to pick it up in Evergood’s Greenwich Village studio. Evergood had decided that it needed “a spot of red here . . . He took out his paints and brushes and for four or five hours, long into the night, he reworked the canvas while I watched.” (Augusta and Arnold Newman to Adelyn Breeskin, December 28, 1982, SAAM curatorial file)