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Philip Evergood
Street Corner, 1936
A complex figure whose work straddled urban and social realism, Philip Evergood trained in Europe and new York, absorbing the lessons of the Old Masters and the progressive American artists in his cultivation of a highly individualistic style of painting. Street Corner dates from the first year of his employment with the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, a component of President Roosevelt's recently authorized New Deal. Evergood's initial project was a mural for the Richmond Hill Public Library depicting the New York community's founding. Two tool-toting workers who appear in that mural also hold the formal and emotional center of Street Corner.
In addition to the sober labor theme, Evergood celebrates the topicality of tabloid journalism -- in a manner suggestive of his contemporary Reginald Marsh (whose work hangs nearby). Yet Evergood -- who appears at the picture's center in his signature slouchy hat and with bemused, surveying eyes -- is more engaged with his subjects than Marsh or other contemporary realists, such as Edward Hopper. By presenting himself in Street Corner as both spectator and participant, he literally steps into and becomes one with the jostling crowd. |