When Kroll returned from Paris in 1914 he began painting images of New York City, depicting the life of its crowded streets, bridges, and waterfront. He continued to paint such images until about 1917. The scenes were very well received when exhibited throughout the country. Collector William Preston Harrison may have decided to buy one of Kroll’s New York scenes after seeing several exhibited in annuals of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kroll painted at least four canvases of the Forty-second Street and Broadway area, three of them in 1916. While two include a bit of Bryant Park, in this version Kroll omitted the park and any glimpse of nature. He focused on the skyscrapers that were then drastically changing the skyline of New York. As in most of his urban scenes, Kroll captured the energy and congestion of the metropolis by depicting the streets crowded with trolleys and pedestrians.
New York was not a dark, dingy place to Kroll. This painting is in a high-keyed blue palette. Although not documented as being an enthusiastic disciple of Hardesty Maratta’s color theory, as was his close friend GEORGE BELLOWS, Kroll may have been stimulated to use such an intense hue by the general interest in color then prevalent among artists. The cool hue suggests the cold of winter, and Kroll is known to have painted many Manhattan snow scenes. The artist would go to any extreme, painting outdoors or even hanging from windows, to capture a sense of the city. The intense palette was equaled by the bold brushwork that characterizes most of Kroll’s New York paintings.
