Born in Siberia, the painter Abraham Walkowitz immigrated to the United States as a young child with his widowed mother, settling on the Lower East Side of New York. He studied art in New York and Paris and was attracted to modernism. Between 1912 and 1917, he was part of the avant-garde circle of artists associated with Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery 291. His best work—cubist paintings and drawings of New York cityscapes capturing the dynamism of modern urban life—was done early in his career. He is also known for his five thousand drawings of the dancer Isadora Duncan, whom he first met in Paris before World War I.
This scene in a bomb shelter during World War I is characterized by the empathy and intimacy with which many of Amy Julia Drucker’s London paintings were imbued. The children stand out amid the masses…
Printed amulet for an infant girl from Germany. It was (presumably) printed alongside its companion amulet for a male child (see “Amulet for a Newborn Boy”). However, the pair were separated. A woman…
The Photo League, a socially conscious photographers’ collective that Walter Rosenblum joined in 1937, favored documenting everyday life over newsworthy events. The Lower East Side, with its crowded…