Standing on B-level with a stack of books, waiting for the elevator, you might feel far away from the streets of Manhattan. Good news for all of you Big Apple lovers! Two paintings depicting New York City were hung in the areas surrounding the elevators around the start of this semester. E. 82nd Street, New York City by Derek Reist and Manhattan Streetscape by Elinore Schnurr were generously given to the university by Richard S. Frary in 2001 (they were previously hung in Garland Hall).
Schnurr’s 1985 Manhattan Streetscape hangs directly across from the elevator doors. With works in the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Brooklyn Historical Society, as well as other museums, Schnurr’s work has traveled far from Manhattan. As a part of the recent exhibition “The Urban Situation” at the Ernest Rubenstein Gallery, Schnurr is an actively participating member of the arts community.
If you’re interested in New York cityscapes, why not check out the library’s copy of Painting the Town: Cityscapes of New York: Paintings from the Museum of the City of New York? Inside you’ll find a richly illustrated catalogue including another work by Elinore Schnurr, Katz’s Deli. Don’t forget when you are researching art history topics to check out the library’s Art History Research Guide. And if you want to see another Schnurr, State St. Plaza #16, visit its page on Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art’s website.
It’s great to have art on and around campus. There’s always the Baltimore Museum of Art to the south, and right on campus there’s the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum in Gilman Hall, open from Monday through Friday 10:30am-1:30pm and Homewood Museum, open from Tuesday through Friday 11am-4pm and Saturday and Sunday, 12-4pm. Of course, now you barely have to leave your study carrel. Go down to B-level for a copy of Plato’s Republic, and this time you’ll have a great excuse to take the elevator!