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Skyscrapers

Thurman Rotan American
1932
Not on view
Engineering developments in the 1880s enabled the construction of large, multistory buildings using steel frames to support non-load-bearing walls, which soon dominated urban skylines. To make this work, Rotan photographed a collage he had assembled from steeply angled views of the Daily News building, which, completed two years previously, was already a well-known symbol of modernity. With its repetitive layering of stepped, striped exteriors stretching skyward, Skyscrapers exhibits Rotan’s eye for modern architecture’s rhythms and patterns. The work is a maquette for the artist’s large-scale mural featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1932 exhibition “Murals by American Painters and Photographers.”

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Skyscrapers
  • Artist: Thurman Rotan (American, 1903–1991)
  • Date: 1932
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 20.8 x 40.8 cm (8 3/16 x 16 1/16 in.)
    Frame: 40.6 x 61 cm (16 x 24 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
  • Object Number: 1987.1100.280
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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[High-Contrast Graphic Design Incorporating Repeated Image of Daily News Building], Thurman Rotan American, Gelatin silver print From copy negative
[High-Contrast Graphic Design Incorporating Repeated Image of Daily News Building]
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N.Y. Worlds Fair 1939, Thurman Rotan American, Gelatin silver print
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Thurman Rotan
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