Masterworks

This painting depicts a large white flower, no more; it takes up the entire canvas. The picture is almost one metre wide and its format makes it appear like a poster of the huge flower. The flower occupies the centre of the picture, emphasizing it and in turn being emphasized itself by its placing...

The American painter Reginald Marsh was 38 years old in 1936 when he painted this picture. His studio was in Manhattan, on 14th Street, a rather sleazy, run-down area. This is where he found most of his subjects. The Twenty Cent Movie, however, is based on the Lyric Theatre on 42nd Street. Paintings like this give us a coherent view of what life was like then, in the New York of the Thirties...

It is immediately clear: the painting is not something the artist has seen, or something which can still be seen. It is a collection of familiar objects in an unfamiliar arrangement. It is also immediately clear that the main theme of the picture is the discrepancy between reality and what is portrayed...

The artist Joseph Stella, who came from Italy but had been living in the United States since the turn of the century, painted this almost 180 cm high picture in 1939. He called it 'The Brooklyn-Bridge - Variation on an old theme.' This is the fifth version out of a series of six with this bridge-motif painted by Stella between 1917 and 1941.

The painting depicts a street in New York, Upper Broadway, to the west of Central Park. The scene might be a completely random shot. No one thing in particular is emphasized. Everything, whether near or far, has the same uniform clarity; the carefully laid paving stones, the bluegrey asphalt and the white road markings, the hamburger joint at the foot of the skyscraper...