The End of the Day, Gatun Lock

Pennell, a Philadelphia-born Quaker, spent the first two decades of his career abroad, living primarily in London, where he became a close associate of Whistler. This lithograph was made after the artist toured Panama and looked at the engineering works in progress for the Panama Canal. Of this subject, he wrote, "As I looked a whistle blew. Every one instantly dropped their tools, and long lines of little figures marched away or climbed wooden stairs and iron ladders to the top; and from the depths a long chain rose and clinging to the end of it, grouped as Celline would have loved to group them, were a dozen men swinging up to the surface--the most decorative, yet real, motive in the Wonder of Work I had ever seen. No one could imagine it,--and I had only a minute to see it."