Description
For almost sixty years Delaney painted life in New York City with the discriminating eye of a caricaturist: “The real community is out there in the street where everyone is equal.” Penn Station at War Time is an amusing image of travelers struggling to make their way through a dense mass of people as they rush to catch their trains. Only a few stand out in the tangle of torsos and limbs. Despite its apparent spontaneity, Penn Station at War Time is a sophisticated painting. Delaney bisected the canvas horizontally to contrast the volumetric expanse of the architecture with the linear energy of the crowd below.African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012
Image
Oil On Canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Joseph Delaney