Artist: Samuel J. Woolf
Title: Fiorello LaGuardia
Audio:
Date: 1945
Dimensions: 41″ x 31″
Location in Library: First floor
Media: Oil on canvas
Owner: The Brooklyn College Library Collection. © Artist’s Estate
Description: Fiorello LaGuardia, the namesake of the Library building, was Mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945. Charismatic and popular, he was called “the Little Flower,” the translation of his first name.
Rejected in 1946 as the commemorative portrait for City Hall, this painting was purchased for Brooklyn College a few years later with donations from private individuals, various labor unions, and the Class of 1949.
Woolf, a noted artist and journalist, gained national recognition for capturing his subjects as they looked, not as they wished to look.
