Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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New York Portrait

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Throughout its history New York has inspired writers, musicians, and visual artists. As the portraits in this room demonstrate, the city may serve as a stage for intrepid self-invention or as a backdrop that shapes the dreams and fears of its inhabitants and visitors alike. Artists including Susan Hall and Howard Kanovitz use views of the city to impart their subjects with a nearly mythic sense of style and sophistication. Others, such as Nan Goldin and Ryan McGinley, depict tense and gritty realities. Many of these works capture quintessential New York types, from disillusioned commuters to the downtown artists who flocked to the city in search of freedom, community, or the promise of fame. Leidy Churchman's painting of the dazzling view from New York's tallest residential tower presents a portrait not of an individual but of the city itself.

Below is a selection of works from New York Portrait.

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THE SUBWAY, 1950

Painting of a subway station filled with people. At the center of the image stands a woman in a red dress with a fearful expression.
Painting of a subway station filled with people. At the center of the image stands a woman in a red dress with a fearful expression.

George Tooker, The Subway, 1950. Egg tempera on composition board, 18 1/8 × 36 1/8 in. (46 × 91.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Juliana Force Purchase Award 50.23. © George Tooker

George Tooker used a claustrophobic, labyrinthine subway station to portray the alienation and the isolation of contemporary urban life. The depicted commuters—all of whom seem to have the same face—seem frozen, trapped by the architecture of a New York subway station. Tooker rendered this distinctly modern subject in egg tempera, a medium associated almost exclusively with the Renaissance. The paint creates a smooth, matte surface and is ideal for making sharp lines, which together lend the anxious scene an eerie placidity. The artist said that he attempted to paint reality in a way that would impress it “on the mind so hard that it returns as a dream.”

Artists

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On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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