Skyscrapers

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

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

More Artwork

By Thurman Rotan

In the same medium

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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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ca. 1930

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N.Y. Worlds Fair 1939, Thurman Rotan American, Gelatin silver print — N.Y. Worlds Fair 1939
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Necklace, Meta Overbeck American, Gold, emeralds, Montana sapphires, topazes, enamel, American — Necklace
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Louis C. Tiffany
Manufacturer Tiffany & Co.
ca. 1914–15

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