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

The interiors of public places in New York City, from intimate bars to cavernous hotel lobbies, have been the focus of a series of atmospheric paintings by Elinore Schnurr, who is intrigued by how such defined enclosures influence the interactions of their random occupants. Often posing as a patron of the setting she intends to paint, Schnurr records her initial impressions as small, on-the-spot watercolors that register structural environment, tonal relationships within the space, and the imprint of figures coming into and out of her visual field. She also makes careful color notes of the controlled lighting that heightens the drama of exchange between such spaces and people passing through them. These sketches inform compositions further developed on canvas in her Long Island City studio.

Katz's Deli is a moody evening portrait of the landmark eatery at 205 East Houston Street frequented by residents of the Lower East Side since 1888, when the Eisland brothers opened a delicatessen at the corner of Houston and Ludlow Streets.¹ After Willy and Benny Katz bought the store in partnership with Harry Tarowsky in 1920, the deli was renamed for the Katz brothers. Savory pastrami, pickled vegetables, and homemade knishes drew to Katz's a loyal neigh-borhood clientele as well as luminaries from New York's nearby Yiddish theaters. During World War II, the deli earned acclaim for its advertising slogan and sales campaign, "Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army."

In this view, Schnurr depicts the thinning population of diners congregating at the deli after nightfall, evoked by the dark-blue-tinged light glimpsed through the window fronting Houston Street. Her principal interests, however, are the distinct effects of the overhead fluorescent rods running the length of Katz's vault-like interior, and of the inflooding neon light from the store's exterior street sign. By law, the fixtures illuminating the cooking area were sleeved in plastic, which grease eventually rendered "golden-crusted with age -tinting the already dead, flat fluorescent glow." Under this peculiar glare, patrons appeared to shrivel within the vast restaurant space, their individuality diminished by the sameness of "row upon row of Formica-topped tables replete with plastic ketchup bottles, napkin dispensers, and metal-topped sugar jars."²

Notes:

1 From A Short History of Katz's Delicatessen (New York: Katz's Delicatessen, 1994). By the early twentieth century, the Lower East Side was home to sixty delicatessens, most featuring Eastern European Jewish cuisine. See Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 324.

2 Quotations are from Schnurr's artist's statement, dated July 22, 1995, Museum Archives.


Katz's Deli 1991 Elinore Schnurr (b. 1932) Oil on canvas, 36 X 50 Gift of the artist, 94.59
The interiors of public places in New York City, from intimate bars to cavernous hotel lobbies, have been the focus of a series of atmospheric paintings by Elinore Schnurr, who is intrigued by how such defined enclosures influence the interactions of their random occupants. Often posing as a patron of the setting she intends to paint, Schnurr records her initial impressions as small, on-the-spot watercolors that register structural environment, tonal relationships within the space, and the imprint of figures coming into and out of her visual field. She also makes careful color notes of the controlled lighting that heightens the drama of exchange between such spaces and people passing through them. These sketches inform compositions further developed on canvas in her Long Island City studio. Katz's Deli is a moody evening portrait of the landmark eatery at 205 East Houston Street frequented by residents of the Lower East Side since 1888, when the Eisland brothers opened a delicatessen at the corner of Houston and Ludlow Streets.¹ After Willy and Benny Katz bought the store in partnership with Harry Tarowsky in 1920, the deli was renamed for the Katz brothers. Savory pastrami, pickled vegetables, and homemade knishes drew to Katz's a loyal neigh-borhood clientele as well as luminaries from New York's nearby Yiddish theaters. During World War II, the deli earned acclaim for its advertising slogan and sales campaign, "Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army." In this view, Schnurr depicts the thinning population of diners congregating at the deli after nightfall, evoked by the dark-blue-tinged light glimpsed through the window fronting Houston Street. Her principal interests, however, are the distinct effects of the overhead fluorescent rods running the length of Katz's vault-like interior, and of the inflooding neon light from the store's exterior street sign. By law, the fixtures illuminating the cooking area were sleeved in plastic, which grease eventually rendered "golden-crusted with age -tinting the already dead, flat fluorescent glow." Under this peculiar glare, patrons appeared to shrivel within the vast restaurant space, their individuality diminished by the sameness of "row upon row of Formica-topped tables replete with plastic ketchup bottles, napkin dispensers, and metal-topped sugar jars."² Notes: 1 From A Short History of Katz's Delicatessen (New York: Katz's Delicatessen, 1994). By the early twentieth century, the Lower East Side was home to sixty delicatessens, most featuring Eastern European Jewish cuisine. See Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 324. 2 Quotations are from Schnurr's artist's statement, dated July 22, 1995, Museum Archives.