New York 1911

Abraham Walkowitz made this watercolor and ink work, ‘New York’, on paper. It looks like he’s trying to catch the city's rhythm, almost like a song. There's something so immediate about watercolor, isn’t there? The way the colors bleed and blend gives it a life of its own. In this piece, Walkowitz uses these blues and grays to build up the city, scraping and stippling the paper to create the form. Look at the bottom of the piece - that swirling, chaotic mass of blue and black. It's like the city's energy, buzzing and overwhelming. Then, those stark white towers rising above – they feel almost ghostly, like memories of buildings rather than solid things. The marks are really quite raw, but the overall composition sings. Walkowitz was part of the same art scene as folks like Marin, and you can see how they were riffing off each other, capturing the feeling of the city in these really personal, gestural ways. It’s all about feeling, not just seeing, you know?