American, 1894-1963
Lewis Street, c.1935-1943
Oil on canvas
23 1/2” x 29 3/4”
The Brooklyn College Library Collection
Ben Galos emigrated from Belarus to the U.S. in 1913. Galos’s bustling industrial environment is reminiscent of the Ashcan School. The influence of the American Realists of the early 1900s such as Robert Henri and George Sloan is apparent in this painting, down to Galos’s inclusion of the distinctive New York streetlamp.
During the Great Depression Galos worked for the WPA. Two of his paintings from that era are on view here:
this one, and a very different one entitled Old Farmhouse.
