Steam Shovel at Work in the Culebra Cut
Joseph Pennell American
Not on view
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, "'This beast,' as they say down there, 'can pick up anything from an elephant ot a red-bug,'–the smallest hing on the Isthmus. They also say the shovel 'would look just like Teddy if it only had glasses.' It does the work of digging the Canal and filling the trains, and does it amazingly–under the direction of its amazing crews."
