Near the Rialto, Venice

Mabel Pugh, Near the Rialto, Venice, ca. 1923-1926, linoleum cut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the North Carolina Museum of Art (Gift of the artist, 1977), 2020.4.11
Copied Mabel Pugh, Near the Rialto, Venice, ca. 1923-1926, linoleum cut on paper, sheet: 13 × 8 5⁄8 in. (33.0 × 21.9 cm), irregular image: 9 1⁄2 × 7 3⁄8 in. (24.0 × 18.7 cm), irregular mount: 14 1⁄4 × 10 1⁄4 in. (36.2 × 26 cm), irregular, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the North Carolina Museum of Art (Gift of the artist, 1977), 2020.4.11

Artwork Details

Title
Near the Rialto, Venice
Artist
Date
ca. 1923-1926
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet: 13 × 8 5⁄8 in. (33.0 × 21.9 cm), irregular image: 9 1⁄2 × 7 3⁄8 in. (24.0 × 18.7 cm), irregular mount: 14 1⁄4 × 10 1⁄4 in. (36.2 × 26 cm), irregular
Credit Line
Transfer from the North Carolina Museum of Art (Gift of the artist, 1977)
Mediums Description
linoleum cut on paper
Classifications
Subjects
  • Architecture — bridge
  • Cityscape — Italy — Venice
  • Waterscape — canal
Object Number
2020.4.11
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2020.4.11

Artwork Description

By the twentieth century, Venice offered a vibrant tourist industry that was easy for American visitors to navigate, including single young women. Pugh worked in Venice in 1921 while touring Europe on a scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, filling her sketchbooks with records of the principal sights. She later converted these designs into linoleum block prints that led to commissions for book and magazine illustrations. These travel images cemented her reputation as an innovative printmaker and designer. In this view of the Rialto Bridge, Pugh includes a young female artist at work on the lower left, presumably inserting herself into the scene.

Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano, 2021.