Scenes of New York City

Roberta J. M. Olson, Editor
Interview by Wendy N. E. Ikemoto
Essay by Kenneth T. Jackson
Catalogue entries by Roberta J. M. Olson, Wendy N. E. Ikemoto and Marilyn Satin Kushner

A visual love letter to New York—its heart-stopping skyscrapers,  its humming bridges, its pell-mell of international humanity  seen over more than three centuries—Scenes of New York City celebrates the promised gift of 130 works of art from the Elie and  Sarah Hirschfeld Collection to the New-York Historical Society.  The Hirschfeld gift is at once a collection of individual works by talented American and European artists, a series of vivid snapshots of this iconic city, and a tapestry weaving a narrative of Gotham’s vibrant history.

The donation of 130 paintings, watercolours, drawings, prints, and sculpture from New Yorkers Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld extends the collections of New-York Historical, founded in 1804, into the 21st century: it includes 113 works by 82 artists not  previously represented in its collections, adding works by  pivotal modern artists including Isabel Bishop, Louise Nevelson,  Jacob Lawrence, Edward Hopper, Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis,  Keith Haring, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O’Keeffe,  Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Christo, as well as George Grosz, Marc Chagall, Françoise Gilot, and Fernand Léger, among others.

The volume features an introductory essay covering the sweeping history of New York City, a lively interview with the collector Elie Hirschfeld, scholarly entries on the 130 works, and comparative images that illuminate the evolution of the City and the artistic contexts of the works.

Publication accompanies an exhibition of the collection at the New-York Historical Society, Treasures from the Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection, Scenes of New York City, October 22, 2021 – February 27, 2022

Author biographies

Roberta J.M. Olson is professor emerita of Art History at Wheaton College, Mass., and curator of drawings emerita at the New-York Historical Society

Wendy N.E. Ikemoto is curator of American Art at the New-York Historical Society

Kenneth T. Jackson is the Jacques Barzun Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University

Marilyn Satin Kushner is curator and head, Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Louise Mirrer
• Preface by Margaret K. Hofer
• Acknowledgments by Roberta J. M. Olson
• Notes to the Reader
• Collecting New York: Elie Hirschfeld in Conversation by Wendy N.E. Ikemoto
• New York city as Revealed by the Hirschfeld Collection by Kenneth T. Jackson
• Catalogue by Roberta J.M. Olson, Wendy N.E. Ikemoto, and Marilyn Satin Kushner
• Frequently Cited sources
• Index
• Photography Credits