Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1857, the American etcher, lithographer, and writer Joseph Pennell rose to prominence as one of the major book illustrators of his time. After attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennell found work in New Orleans where he created etchings of historic landmarks and illustrated travel articles for American publishers. Pennell first travelled to Europe in the 1880s, during which time he illustrated some of the writings of the novelist William Dean Howells; it was also during this period that the artist began to establish an international reputation for his prints of scenery, interiors, and individuals. Eventually settling in London, Pennell joined the avant-garde artistic circle surrounding the expatriate American artist James McNeill Whistler; his cadre of friends came to comprise many of the most notable creative luminaries of the day, including John Singer Sargent, George Bernard Shaw, and Robert Louis Stevenson. While spending most of his working life in Europe, Pennell nevertheless travelled broadly for his work, portraying architectural subjects in drawings that would often serve as a bases for his etchings and lithographs.
The pastel drawing presented here, completed approximately a year after construction finished on the Plaza Hotel in New York City, forgoes Pennell’s most typical approach to his architectural subjects. Inspired by Whistler’s handling of urban subject matter, Pennell often took up a quasi-documentarian style for his city scenes, favoring fragmentary, fleeting views of urban life. In this view of the Plaza Hotel—as well as in many of his New York City scenes—the artist eschews his established approach, opting instead to convey the monumental solidity, architectural presence, and the corresponding sense of scale imparted by the new building. While still based in London, the artist was drawn to industrial subject matter, which made New York’s changing landscape at the turn of the century especially compelling. The first years of the 20th century, in particular, had witnessed a construction boom and the building of notable landmarks across the city, including the Williamsburg Bridge and the Flatiron Building, all of which were subjects taken up by Pennell. Indeed, a compulsion to document the changing face of the city and its corresponding construction processes seems to have been one of the key drives motivating the artist. Years later, Pennell would take up this same structure in an etching, The Plaza from the Park (1921). This later print presents a partial view of the building from Central Park, executed from the vantage point of a passing pedestrian the Plaza, rather than standing apart, appears to be comfortably woven into the fabric of the city’s landscape.
Pennell moved back to the United States at the outbreak of the First World War. During his lifetime the artist produced more than 900 etchings and mezzotints and more than 600 lithographs on architectural and landscape subjects ranging from the Panama Canal and Yosemite National Park to the factories of England and the temples of Greece. Pennell distinguished himself not only as one of America’s most talented etchers but also as a promotional genius who helped to spur the revival of printmaking and print collecting during the first two decades of the 20th century. His publications include several books on drawing and printmaking, as well as a famous biography of Whistler that he wrote with his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell, in 1908. | 