Manhattan Excavation

Sir Muirhead Bone was a Scottish printmaker and watercolor artist noted for his depictions of architectural subjects, city views, landscapes, and his work as a war artist in both the First and Second World Wars. After World War I, Bone made fewer prints until he travelled to the United States. His visit to New York City inspired this dramatic birds-eye view of a massive construction site for a new building, the Hotel Roosevelt located at Madison Avenue and East 45th Street (completed 1924). In the excavated pit, Bone drew ant-like workmen scurrying about massive beam supports holding up the retaining walls for the building's foundation; more workmen stand on the platform at the base of a giant crane. At the top of the image, Bone captured a bustling street intersection filled with automobiles and pedestrians. Bone began this large print in 1923, and finally completed it in 1928; it is now regarded as one of the artist's most celebrated drypoints.