New Perceptual Experiences: Architects, Artists, and the Skyscrapers of New York

That New York’s skyscrapers projected such a powerful identity for the city that can be ascribed to the perpetual imaging of the city’s skyline, but also to famed designs such as the highly-publicized World, Flatiron, Woolworth, Chrysler, and Empire State Buildings.  But by 1910, the Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery had exhibited the skyscraper photographs of Alvin Langdon Coburn and paintings of John Marin, and during the 1920s the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe making the city the center of the first transatlantic avant-garde.  The photographs of Margaret Bourke-White and Berenice Abbott, the lithographs of Louis Lozowick, and the colorful prints of Winold Reiss, the latter of which explored the night life of Harlem, comprised a cauldron of experimentation in which these artists forged and documented new ways of seeing.  Coburn, Charles Sheeler, and Paul Strand positioned their cameras on skyscraper rooftops and observation balconies.  O’Keeffe set up a studio in the 30th story of the Shelton Hotel and Bourke-White near the top of the Chrysler Building, inviting others to share their views of the city.  All found in the skyscraper’s new spatiality an inspiration for a 20th century American art.