Wikimedia Commons • Public Domain
Pennsylvania Station Excavation
StyleAmerican Realism
Artwork Details
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George Bellows completed this dramatic view of the Pennsylvania Station excavation around 1907-1908, showing workers dwarfed by the massive pit they had torn from Manhattan's Tenderloin district. Steam and smoke billow from the eight-acre hole while laborers toil in the winter cold. The scene has an almost infernal quality.
Bellows was associated with the Ashcan School, painters who documented urban America's grittier realities. His dark palette and vigorous brushwork capture both the excitement and ambivalence of rapid urban transformation. The grand station that rose here was demolished in 1963. This painting belongs to the Brooklyn Museum.
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About Pennsylvania Station Excavation
The painting depicts the massive excavation for Penn Station in Manhattan around 1907-1908. Workers appear dwarfed by the eight-acre pit they've created.
It hangs at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, appropriately near where McKim, Mead & White also designed their building.
Bellows was associated with this group of artists who painted urban American life in all its gritty, unidealized reality.
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