New York Street Scene 1911

Jerome Myers's "New York Street Scene" from 1931, sketched in pencil, feels so immediate, like a snapshot of a moment in time. The strokes are quick, capturing the everyday hustle of the city. You can almost hear the chatter and feel the energy of the street. I imagine Myers standing there, quickly sketching, trying to capture not just what he saw, but what it felt like to be there. Look at the way he’s rendered the lamplight—it almost flickers on the page. Myers’s style reminds me of other Ashcan School artists, with their focus on urban life. But there’s a unique tenderness here too. I think that as artists, we’re all just trying to catch a feeling, an essence, and translate it onto paper or canvas. Each mark becomes a record of that exchange, a conversation between the artist and the world. And then, between the artist and the viewer.