Abroad in New York
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
For a city of its size, rich in buildings and sculpture, New York notably lacks many examples of fine mural painting. Don’t get me wrong. We have a few good ones. Some weeks ago I wrote in this space of Ezra Winter’s frescoes in the Cunard Building.
But the best American muralist of all time was a New Yorker, Edwin Blashfield, and we have little to show for it. To see Blashfield at his best, you must go to Washington, D.C., to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, where he painted the great pendentives of the dome. So too did he paint the fantastic images ringing the dome of the main reading room at the Library of Congress. It’s a measure of how some of America’s greatest artists scarcely register to people nowadays that when I recently took a guided tour of the library, the guide neglected to mention Blashfield’s name.
In New York, go to Bridgemarket, on the south side of the Queensboro Bridge. There, in front of Guastavino’s restaurant, stands a modest granite fountain, backed by a stele inset with colorful mosaic. Blashfield designed this as a memorial to his late wife, Evangeline. It was dedicated in 1919.
Generally, artists like Edwin cared little for what we now call “self-expression.” This memorial, however, represents him at his most personal. It’s his testament to his beloved and remarkable wife.
Evangeline, who was a close friend of Edith Wharton, was a writer of real distinction; her and Edwin’s book “Italian Cities” (1901) garnered raves from Wharton, who in her turn benefited from Edwin’s promotion of her first book, “The Decoration of Houses” (1902). Evangeline involved herself in civic causes, including the reform of working conditions at city markets. The wholesale market at the bridge plaza opened in 1916 and closed in the 1930s. In the 1990s, the new Bridgemarket – comprising a restaurant, a supermarket, a Conran shop, and a public plaza – opened.
The mosaic had been placed in storage, pending restoration. Sometimes such projects take a long time, especially when the artist has faded from the public consciousness, as had Blashfield. But he hadn’t faded from the consciousness of the Municipal Art Society, of which he and his wife had been prominent members, and that society’s important Adopt-a-Monument program arranged for the mosaic’s restoration by Brooklyn’s Wilson Conservation. The unveiling of the restored memorial took place last year.
Edwin Blashfield designed the mosaic, but Grace Edith Barnes, who often worked with Blashfield (and other major artists) executed the work, titled “Abundance.” A beautiful, languorously elegant woman, in a flowing, white-topped gown, rests her left elbow upon a cornucopia spilling its fruits – a riot of purples, oranges, blues, reds, and yellows – toward the viewer in a powerfully perspectival image. It’s truly one of the loveliest unexpected things in Manhattan.
Bridgemarket offers other delights. The Guastavino vaults of the restaurant and of Food Emporium, and Henry Hornbostel’s design of the bridge itself, make a trip here worthwhile. The dazzling Evangeline is the icing on the cake.
If you have questions about New York City’s buildings, please e-mail them to fmorrone@nysun.com.