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Lot 244
Joel Meyerowitz(born 1938)'New York City' (World Trade Center)
7 – 17 July 2025, 12:00 EDT
Online, New YorkSold for US$3,584 inc. premium
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Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938)
'New York City' (World Trade Center), 1982
Chromogenic print, printed 2002; flush-mounted to aluminum, signed, titled, dated, annotated 'WTC.1', and editioned '4/10' in ink on the reverse, framed, an Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery label on the reverse.
31 x 40 in. (78.7 x 101.6 cm.)
Chromogenic print, printed 2002; flush-mounted to aluminum, signed, titled, dated, annotated 'WTC.1', and editioned '4/10' in ink on the reverse, framed, an Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery label on the reverse.
31 x 40 in. (78.7 x 101.6 cm.)
Footnotes
Provenance
Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2003
Literature
The New Yorker, 24 September 2001, pp. 52-3
Note
Taken from Meyerowitz's West 19th Street studio in 1982, this vibrant cityscape featuring Manhattan's iconic skyline is one from a series that the photographer made from his window looking south. When he began this series, Meyerowitz was in the midst of his wide-ranging exploration of light, both in his New York City images and in his expansive Cape Cod landscapes. In the present work, Meyerowitz's careful study is apparent: an expansive, moody sky shrouds the city in a tentative light, with the only interruptions emanating from illuminated apartment interiors and patches of a diffuse sunlight attempting to break through the clouds.
In a 2001 editorial for The New Yorker, Meyerowitz reflected on his images of New York: "... I watched the play of light as storms and cloud systems drifted over lower Manhattan, and was again seduced by a vision of New York as Big Sky country - valley and range. I thought that I was being called by the scale of the city seen against the sky, but, of course, what really excited me was the towers of the World Trade Center on the horizon." Less than 20 years after Meyerowitz made this image, the New York City skyline was forever altered by the events of September 11, 2001. Meyerowitz was the sole photographer granted unimpeded access to the Ground Zero site, and subsequently published 'Aftermath', a haunting group of images documenting the wreckage.