George Wright - 5 - New York, New York

Edward Gerber has just published an excellent book about George Wright entitled An Artist's Life Examined. It's 8.5 x 8.5 inches square, paperback, 92 pages, many of them in color. The price is US$19.95 plus postage. Email him at edwardgerber@starpower.net or write to him by snail mail. His address is 4619 Butterworth Place N.W., Washington DC 20016.

"On an East Side Street." Click on this and the following images to enlarge them.

Probably one of Wright’s best collection of notebook illustrations, I leave you with these to enjoy for the month of August while some of us quit work for a few weeks.

The article, “The Drum Beat of the Town,” was written by a Nelson Lloyd (about whom I was unable to find any information). It appeared in the November 1909 issue of Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, as accompaniment to Wright’s excellent work.

To quote some of it, “. . . . Yet New York gets in the blood. The senseless hurry of it–our critics always point out our lack of repose–the rush for wealth, the barbaric opulence, the obtrusive poverty–how often we hear them excoriated! And smiling we admit it all. We march to a quick drumbeat and perhaps to barren conquests. But there is something martial in our very noises; something of the fight in our stirring life. . . .”

To put this hubris in perspective, read how Jacob Riis describes the stirring lives of the desperate poor in his exposé of how the other half lived in New York City at the time

The Majesty of the Law.

More Snow and Along the Waterfront.

Fifth Avenue.

Under the Elevated.

On the Stage of a Bowery Theatre.

Comedians.

Some other New York City types.

Have a great summer vacation.