Accession Number
1979/2.130

Title
Fourth Street and Jones, New York City

Artist(s)
Anne Ryan

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1938

Medium & Support
oil on canvas board

Dimensions
11 15/16 in x 16 in (30.32 cm x 40.64 cm);13 ¾ in x 18 ⅛ in (34.92 cm x 46.04 cm)

Credit Line
Gift of Gerome Kamrowski

Label copy
Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Anne Ryan studied art in college, but until the age of 45 she was occupied with her roles as poet, wife and mother. After a brief sojourn in Europe, where she immersed herself in the artistic milieu of the day, she moved in 1933 to a small apartment in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Her neighbors in Greenwich Village, sculptor Tony Smith (1912–1980) and abstract painter Hans Hofmann (1880–1966), both encouraged Ryan to try her hand at painting.
"Fourth Street and Jones, New York City," completed when Ryan was 50, is one of her earliest canvases, representing her surroundings in New York. Ryan later achieved success in woodcut printmaking, and at age 65, she learned yet another art form, the mixed media collage. She created nearly 400 collages in the 6 years prior to her death. In addition to these achievements, she also continued to write poetry. One month before she died, Ryan wrote a poem about working with oils on canvas, which opens with the lines: "The comedy of paint/Has its own underlying terror."
(A. Dixon, 20th Century Gallery installation, June 1999)

Primary Object Classification
Painting

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.

Keywords
modern and contemporary art