New Acquisitions
West Shore Terminal
Leon Kroll
Leon Kroll
West Shore Terminal, 1913
oil on canvas
36 x 48 in.
Purchased with funds provided by the Friends of American Art
2010.02
Leon Kroll’s West Shore Terminal depicts the busy railway yard and ferry docks on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. Kroll’s vantage point is from a rocky outcrop looking across the river at midtown Manhattan. In the distance, the city’s growing skyline is visible through the haze of smoke and steam. On the river, ferryboats can be seen on their route from Manhattan’s 42nd street terminal. At the near shore are passenger and freight stations and a network of serpentine tracks that carry trains departing to points west. The scene is animated by the sense of movement in the trains and boats, the rhythmic lines of the tracks and by the plums of smoke, which rise everywhere. At the beginning of the 20th century, these smoke plums were emblematic of the hustle and bustle of industrial America.
In 1913 when Kroll was painting this work, he had become friends with George Bellows and the painters associated with the Ashcan School. These painters, who included Robert Henri, John Sloan and others, were portraying the gritty and exhilarating world of the nation’s greatest metropolis. Inspired by their work during this period Kroll created a number of paintings such as West Shore Terminal celebrating the vast scale and dynamism of New York City.
Date
- c. 1913
