Washington Square, New York City, in art

Magazine Antiques, June, 2001 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Almost every major city has its cultural heart--a quarter where established and would-be artists, writers, composers, and actors live and work: For many years in New York City this was Washington Square in Greenwich Village.

In its earliest incarnation, from the 1790s through 1825, Washington Square was a potter's field and the site of public executions and corporal punishments. Then, in 1826 the mayor of New York, Philip Hone, declared that the square would become a military parade ground. In 1831 New York University was located in a building on the square, and for a period of about sixty years it leased space to organizations such as the New York Historical Society and some sixty artists, including Samuel F.B. Morse, Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, John Frederick Kensett, and Edwin Austin Abbey. These artists, and a large number from the next generation, set the stage for the role of Washington Square as the city's artistic center. An exhibition entitled Homage to the Square: Picturing Washington Square, 1890-1965, on view at Berry-Hill Galleries in New York City through July 6, chronicles this evolution. It includes approximately ninety paintings, prints, and photographs.

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In 1889, to celebrate the centennial of Washington's inauguration in New York City, a committee came up with the idea of building a temporary wood and stucco arch, which was so admired that a marble replacement was erected in 1895. (The marble relief sculptures were not added until after 1910.) The arch soon became a focal point of Washington Square and a subject for artists working in all mediums. Almost simultaneously the south side of the square became home to immigrant workers, thus pushing the affluent residents on the northern edge further north. Among the early modernist artists who enjoyed affordable living and studio space on the square were Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and William Glackens. As Greenwich Village was becoming the artistic haunt of the avant-garde, Sloan with the aid of Marcel Duchamp and four friends, sat on the top of the arch and declared Greenwich Village a free and independent nation. From then on, this section of New York has been celebrated for its free-thinking artistic population, made even more famous by the beatnik generation of the 1940s and 1950s. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, the park became the meeting place for derelicts and the homeless, who were the subject of photographs by Arthur Felig ("Weegee") and Diane Arbus, continuing the work of such social commentators as Ben Shahn and Paul Strand.

The catalogue of the exhibition, with an excellent essay by Bruce Weber, is available from the gallery at 212-744-2300.

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