Cityscape

Artwork Description

In Cityscape, Abraham Walkowitz half abandons representation, employing sinuous lines and repeated forms to capture New York's dynamism. The amorphous shapes at the drawing's base suggest buzzing streets, with bold strokes shooting upwards to form window-speckled towers. A pioneer among modernist artists in the United States, Walkowitz had emigrated from Russia with his family in 1883 to escape pogroms, campaigns of violence and genocide against Jews. They settled in New York City, and Walkowitz studied art at the National Academy of Design. While training later in Paris, he encountered new artistic directions like cubism, then helped introduce these provocative abstract possibilities to the United States. In 1913, the same year as this drawing's creation, he exhibited ten works in New York's Armory Show of contemporary art, alongside Childe Hassam, John Sloan, and John Marin.