Fourteenth Street 1925

Here's Calder’s “Fourteenth Street”, a small oil painting where everything is felt, not literally described. It's a nocturne of black and yellow, sooty and glittering. I can imagine him, brush in hand, quickly layering dabs of paint, trying to capture the electric buzz of the city. The paint is thick and juicy, applied with a kind of urgent joy. Look how he renders the figures as simple strokes, blobs of dark pigment, barely there, yet full of life. Maybe Calder was thinking about the energy of urban life and the way we’re all moving through it. He was probably looking at the Ashcan School guys, painters like John Sloan or Everett Shinn. It’s a painterly language they all spoke. It’s interesting to think about how artists keep inspiring each other across time. It is a kind of community, pushing each other forward. This painting feels alive with potential; it doesn't resolve into one fixed reading.