Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan Dramatic Light, Lower Manhattan Skyline Painting

Adriaan Lubbers (1892-1954), Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, 1934

A Short Essay by Michael Klein

A visitor to the city of New York in his early years, Lubbers, a Dutchman, was captivated by the power and dimension of the city. This particular view of the many he painted during his lifetime was made in 1934. Using a bird’s eye perspective, looking from Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge to the dense architecture across the East River. The river is ice blue in color, in contrast to the dark grays and browns of the remarkable and impressive architecture of Manhattan. Two distinct parts of the city are separated by the river and also by scale.

Lubbers, a mostly self-taught artist, portrays the city alive, teeming with activity, very much a weekday view of a city at work: ships, a tug boat, and a ferry are active on the river, while traffic crosses the bridge in both directions, and smoke rises from factories in the foreground. Lubbers contrasts the small warehouses at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge with the grand skyline of Manhattan, like a postcard to explain to his friends and family in Holland how New York City looks and feels to this European visitor.

Painted in winter light, strong contrasts cross the surface, illuminating and highlighting elements of the city that have so captured his imagination. He paints in dark and somber tones a city of stone towers and office high-rises. Cubist-inspired, a nod to early Picasso, he creates a visual grid of verticals and horizontal but his image always remains representational to underscore his fascination and admiration for this vibrant American city. This is a seminal work by Lubbers, defining his passion for the city that is a true melting pot of American life and culture. A city he knew was open to all visitors from far and wide.

During his career, he traveled to other cities such as Chicago and Paris, where he befriended Piet Mondriaan, but New York inspired him the most; for him, it represented true Modernism both in its appearance and its vision. In 1937, a profile of him appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, and in the same year, a solo exhibition of his work was held at Rockefeller Center. Even with his growing notoriety for painting and printmaking, he supported himself with various jobs during his stay in New York. He worked in a factory, as a joiner, a herring peddler, a mechanic, and even a cabaret singer!

When one compares the Lubbers image to the other images of New York City by American artists Georgia O’Keeffe or Joseph Stella, and the later images of Guy Arthur Wiggins, the character variety and uniqueness of the city can be interpreted in so many different artists, yet all acknowledged that the city is their muse. From the New York Times in 1992, critic Roberta Smith wrote of his one-man exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, “Lubbers made the city's soaring bridges and skyscrapers, its narrow man-made canyons and spreading panoramas the central motifs of his career. Part realistic and part expressionistic in style - with
occasional hints of the visionary - his paintings evoke the bustling grandeur of Manhattan between the two world wars…”
Michael Klein
Michael Klein Arts LLC
An agent for Artists and Artists Estates
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Robert Funk Fine Art

It's how New York City looked in 1934, but through the eye of an artist, not a tourist. Lubbers chooses a classic view of Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Heights, but what elevates a typical tourist view is the artist's aesthetic perspective. His composition framing of the scene and, most importantly, the high-contrast light make this moody painting a Modernist masterpiece. The painting is dark, but it's not a nocturne. Lubbers chooses a magical late afternoon moment when the light breaks through a dark, heavily clouded winter sky, shining a spotlight on rows of edifices lined up in formation. Each building, smokestack, ferry boat, and car is defined by rim lighting, creating an almost kinetic effect of vertical lines of light dancing on a dark background. Technically, this is a hard way to paint a picture. Lubbers does it with grace and style so that the scene toggles between representation and abstraction. The foreground buildings in Brooklyn are rendered as simplified shapes, echoed by the larger sister building across the river in Lower Manhattan. The span of the Brooklyn Bridge helps the eye connect the two.
It's best to view the painting under a top gallery light to bring out the details and color. Light reveals color.

Adriaan Lubbers (1892-1954)
Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan
signed indistinctly 'Adriaan Lubbers' (lower right)—signed again, dated '1934' and inscribed with title (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
361⁄2 x 283⁄4 in. (92.7 x 73 cm.)
Painted in 1934.
Provenance
Runkel-Hue Williams Ltd., London.
Christie's New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, circa 1985.
Exhibited
New York, Museum of the City of New York, Adriaan Lubbers in New York, March 10-August 23, 1992.