Building the Building (from portfolio, Lithographs of New York in 1904)

Joseph Pennell embarked on an international career in 1884, moving from Pennsylvania to London and creating views of Europe as magazine illustrations and fine art prints. He made this series of New York subjects in 1904 during a brief return to the United States within his twenty-year London sojourn. Pennell described his immediate enthusiasm for New York's rapidly changing landscape, writing, "It's so beautiful, I must go out and make more immortal works--the mill is grinding and when it does so, I don't like to stop the machinery." The portfolio's exclusive focus on tall buildings demonstrates the extent to which the artist and his audience saw cathedral-like beauty in New York's skyscrapers. Pennell's published prints met with great success and fueled an increase in printmaking and print collecting in the United States during the early twentieth century.