Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

Max Arthur Cohn used jewel-like tones and a Cubist-influenced style to depict the McGraw-Hill Building as it appeared from his studio at 311 West 24th Street. In this view, part of an ongoing series of abstract and semi-abstract paintings of the city that he began in 1960,¹ Cohn ringed the McGraw-Hill Building with structures that actually stand closer to the 24th Street building where he lives.

Although no longer owned by McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, the building, located at 332 West 42nd Street, retains its original name.² Dating to 1930, it was the first skyscraper built west of Eighth Avenue on 42nd Street, at the edge of then-notorious Hell's Kitchen. It towered above the industrial and tenement buildings of the neighborhood, where the zoning accommodated McGraw-Hill's printing plant as well as its corporate offices. Despite the contemporary gentrification of Hell's Kitchen, known today as Clinton, few tall buildings have been added to the neighborhood, allowing the McGraw-Hill Building to continue dominating its immediate surroundings. Architect Raymond Hood's design for the building was distinguished for its strong simplicity of outline, featuring the set-back shape that Hood considered important for the grace of multi-story buildings.³With the McGraw-Hill Building, Hood also introduced New York to the striking effects of horizontal ribbon windows and produced a bravura coloristic note in his use of blue-green glazed terra-cotta.

Max Arthur Cohn, born in London in 1903, was brought to the United States as a young child. His first summer job, at the age of seventeen, involved work in a New York City silk-screen studio, and he continued to practice silk screening through the end of the Works Progress Administration. During the 1920s he studied at the Art Students League with Boardman Robinson and John Sloan, the second of whom Cohn considers a great influence on his work.⁴ In 1927, in order to broaden his knowledge, Cohn went to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Colarossi and absorbed the influences of modernism, particularly abstraction and Cubism, prevalent in the vanguard art circles of the French capital. During the Depression he was engaged in the Easel Project of the WPA. In 1942 he wrote a book entitled Silk Screen Stenciling as a Fine Art. In addition to his facility at silk screening and painting, Cohn is an accomplished printmaker.

Notes:

1 In a letter dated July 1995, in the Museum Archives, Cohn remarked that he was continuing the series.

2 McGraw-Hill Publishing Company sold the building to Group Health in 1974, the year the publishers moved to Rockefeller Center. In 1980 the medical insurance organization in turn sold the building to a joint venture of Aaron Gural and George S. Kaufman, representing their real estate concerns, Newmark and Company Real Estate and Kaufman Management Company, respectively.

3 Paul Goldberger, "Critic's Notebook: Raymond Hood and His Visions of Skyscrapers," New York Times, January 3, 1984.

4 Letter of July 1995 in the Museum Archives.


Cityscape, 1975 1975 Max Arthur Cohn (b. 1903) Oil on canvas, 20 X 24 Signed lower right: M. A. Cohn Gift of Jane C. Waldbaum, 92.65
Max Arthur Cohn used jewel-like tones and a Cubist-influenced style to depict the McGraw-Hill Building as it appeared from his studio at 311 West 24th Street. In this view, part of an ongoing series of abstract and semi-abstract paintings of the city that he began in 1960,¹ Cohn ringed the McGraw-Hill Building with structures that actually stand closer to the 24th Street building where he lives. Although no longer owned by McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, the building, located at 332 West 42nd Street, retains its original name.² Dating to 1930, it was the first skyscraper built west of Eighth Avenue on 42nd Street, at the edge of then-notorious Hell's Kitchen. It towered above the industrial and tenement buildings of the neighborhood, where the zoning accommodated McGraw-Hill's printing plant as well as its corporate offices. Despite the contemporary gentrification of Hell's Kitchen, known today as Clinton, few tall buildings have been added to the neighborhood, allowing the McGraw-Hill Building to continue dominating its immediate surroundings. Architect Raymond Hood's design for the building was distinguished for its strong simplicity of outline, featuring the set-back shape that Hood considered important for the grace of multi-story buildings.³With the McGraw-Hill Building, Hood also introduced New York to the striking effects of horizontal ribbon windows and produced a bravura coloristic note in his use of blue-green glazed terra-cotta. Max Arthur Cohn, born in London in 1903, was brought to the United States as a young child. His first summer job, at the age of seventeen, involved work in a New York City silk-screen studio, and he continued to practice silk screening through the end of the Works Progress Administration. During the 1920s he studied at the Art Students League with Boardman Robinson and John Sloan, the second of whom Cohn considers a great influence on his work.⁴ In 1927, in order to broaden his knowledge, Cohn went to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Colarossi and absorbed the influences of modernism, particularly abstraction and Cubism, prevalent in the vanguard art circles of the French capital. During the Depression he was engaged in the Easel Project of the WPA. In 1942 he wrote a book entitled Silk Screen Stenciling as a Fine Art. In addition to his facility at silk screening and painting, Cohn is an accomplished printmaker. Notes: 1 In a letter dated July 1995, in the Museum Archives, Cohn remarked that he was continuing the series. 2 McGraw-Hill Publishing Company sold the building to Group Health in 1974, the year the publishers moved to Rockefeller Center. In 1980 the medical insurance organization in turn sold the building to a joint venture of Aaron Gural and George S. Kaufman, representing their real estate concerns, Newmark and Company Real Estate and Kaufman Management Company, respectively. 3 Paul Goldberger, "Critic's Notebook: Raymond Hood and His Visions of Skyscrapers," New York Times, January 3, 1984. 4 Letter of July 1995 in the Museum Archives.