- Artist or Maker
- Albert Gleizes
France, also active United States, 1881-1953 - Title
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Date Made
- 1915
- Medium
- Pen and ink and black wash, gouache, watercolor, and charcoal on thin paper laid down on cardboard
- Dimensions
- 9 13/16 × 7 1/2 in. (25 × 19 cm)
Frame: 23 1/4 × 20 5/8 × 1 3/4 in. (59.06 × 52.39 × 4.45 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2007.86
- Collecting Area
- Prints and Drawings
- Curatorial Notes
Albert Gleizes was a French painter, theorist, and key figure in the development of Cubism. Born in Paris, he was a cofounder of the movement and authored, with Jean Metzinger, Du Cubisme (1912), one of the first theoretical texts on the radical new style. His work emphasized geometric abstraction and dynamic compositions, often incorporating rhythmic patterns and vibrant colors. Gleizes participated in major exhibitions, including the Salon des Indépendants and the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Show in New York. With the onset of World War I, he served briefly in the army. When his military service ended in 1915, he and his wife left France for New York. There, at a distance from the war, the influence and energy of America took hold, and his art was filled with the landmarks and nightlife of the city, notably in several depictions of the Brooklyn Bridge. Completed in 1883 and celebrated as a triumph of engineering and symbol of urban progress, the Brooklyn Bridge was known for its distinctive Gothic-style towers and sweeping steel cables. In Gleizes’s abstract rendition, it is a skein of curved and straight ink lines, floating over a black, nocturnal background.
Britt Salvesen
2024
