Skip to main content
The figure in the foreground is believed to be an Italian immigrant; Italians made up much of the subway workforce, which consisted of both unskilled laborers and highly experienced miners, several of whom had worked in Pennsylvania, Alaska and South Africa. Behind him, workers move materials on a handcart as well as with the help of horses. A steam crane pulls heavy rocks from the earth. Though construction scenes were popular among artists of the period, Lawson’s paintings specifically of the subway are among the first and only created of the subject and chronicle some of the most important early infrastructure developments in New York City.
ProvenanceBerry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1999.
Artist
Ernest Lawson
(American, 1873 - 1939)
Building the New York Subway
Datec. 1904 - 1909
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 23 3/8 × 19 1/2 in. (59.4 × 49.5 cm)
Object numberN0010.2024
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextAmong the many artists working in New York City in the early twentieth century, Ernest Lawson importantly captured the city’s rapidly changing landscape at the height of industrialization. Lawson was a first-generation artist of the urban scene in New York City who exhibited with members of the Ashcan School from time to time. Building the New York Subway was painted between 1904-1906, when the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) was being constructed in his northern Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.The figure in the foreground is believed to be an Italian immigrant; Italians made up much of the subway workforce, which consisted of both unskilled laborers and highly experienced miners, several of whom had worked in Pennsylvania, Alaska and South Africa. Behind him, workers move materials on a handcart as well as with the help of horses. A steam crane pulls heavy rocks from the earth. Though construction scenes were popular among artists of the period, Lawson’s paintings specifically of the subway are among the first and only created of the subject and chronicle some of the most important early infrastructure developments in New York City.
ProvenanceBerry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1999.
On View
On view
c. 1919
c. 1890
c. 1900
c. 1937
