New York Broadway c. 1925

George Briard's ‘New York Broadway’ is a dance of thin lines on paper, like a city sketched in a dream. Briard is all about the process, isn’t he? He doesn't conceal his work, instead, each stroke feels like a step in a journey. The buildings are solid, yet rendered with a nervous energy, a feeling of perpetual motion. Look closely at the elevated train track, see how it slices through the scene? It's almost brutal in its directness, but also kind of thrilling, isn’t it? The texture is all in the hatching, a dense web of lines that gives the city its grit and grandeur. It reminds me a little of Piranesi, you know? That sense of endless space and human insignificance, but with an American twist. Ultimately, it's the ambiguity that makes this piece sing. It invites us to wander, to question, to see New York not as a fixed reality, but as an ever-shifting idea.