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2022, Whose America?
Night in New York features an unidentified woman who steals the show in her elegant dress, made ever more impressive by the light illuminating it from a store window. Her flashy clothes, the car in the background, and the consumer goods in the window differ markedly from other works in this exhibition made during the Great Depression, which focus on toiling laborers. Perhaps Lewis wanted to highlight America’s continued cultural and technological progress despite an economic disaster. Other, more plainly dressed figures also populate Lewis’s etching, seemingly going about their daily lives. Contrasting with the central figure, they appear to be more like the average New Yorker of the time and provide a fuller picture of the city’s population.
Lewis made most of his art during the 1930s and rose to prominence as a renowned etcher, eventually earning fame and recognition by the Chicago Society of Etchers.
Text by Jordan Dickens, Washburn student