From the Rooftops, Take 2

Last week, I visited a new exhibit at Penn State's Palmer Museum. It's called From the Rooftops, and it celebrates the rooftop art of American Ashcan School painter John Sloan and his contemporaries. The paintings depict urban life, as lived atop the roofs of New York City.

In last week's posting, I shared two of the principal artist John Sloan's work. This week, I decided that I needed more art. So I went back for a second look. This time, I'm including works by two additional artists who studied under Sloan.

Above is Manhattan Rooftops, by Louis Ribak, a Lithuanian artist. The little description beside the painting says this: "Louis Ribak immigrated to New York City in 1912 and studied with John Sloan at the Art Students League in the early 1920s.

On their first night in America, his family narrowly escaped an apartment fire by fleeing to the building's rooftop. Perhaps indebted to this personal history, Ribak's vivid, broadly brushed painting presents adjacent rooftops bursting with color in a manner that also recalls the work of his teacher Sloan."

The second art work, included in the extras, is called Summer Electric Storm, and it is by American artist Cecil Bell. Bell moved to New York from Chicago and studied under John Sloan. The scene is Greenwich village, with a big storm coming.

There is a book that accompanies the exhibition and I am tempted to buy one so that I may learn more about this unique urban art niche. However, the museum gift shop does not have copies in stock yet, so perhaps I shall have to go back yet again!  :-)

The soundtrack song is the Drifters, with Up On the Roof.