Verbal Description: Blackwell's Island, 1928

Narrator: Blackwell’s Island, 1928. This painting is among one of the largest of Hopper’s oil paintings, measuring 34 1/2 inches by 59 1/2 inches. On a horizontally oriented canvas, the oil painting Blackwell’s Island depicts a cityscape of Roosevelt Island in 1928, seen from a far away distance. From top to bottom, this painting's composition is neatly divided into thirds. The top of the painting is a band of chilly ice blue sky filled with wispy white clouds. The painterly sky is punctuated by buildings from the cityscape below. The urban and industrial buildings are lit in high contrast as if the sun were falling or rising to the right. Smoke stacks, houses, fortress-like walls, a water tower, all crowd one another on the green of the island. In the town, however, there is a conspicuous absence of people. The buildings sit static; no illuminated windows or foot traffic: just a still, early morning.

Just below the island cityscape, in the lower third of the painting, are bright cobalt blue waves. The movement of the waves grows in intensity from left to right, as a speedboat sails through the water to the right edge of the canvas. The levity of the movement sharply contrasts with the dark stillness of the foreboding buildings.