Pennsylvania Highway
Item
Title
Pennsylvania Highway
Creator
Aaron Bohrod
American, 1907–1992
American, 1907–1992
Date
1942
Materials
Lithograph
Measurements
12-1/2 x 15-3/8 in. (31.8 x 39 cm)
Description
Chicago native Aaron Bohrod attended the Art Institute of Chicago for several years before moving to New York to study at the Art Students League. One of his teachers at the league was John Sloan, whose gritty realism had a lifelong influence on his work. “Having the choice of painting a brand new automobile or a banged up, tumble-down Model-T Ford,” Bohrod later said, “I always leaned toward the battered object, in the thought that those objects had a great deal more character than the shiny example of recent manufacture.”
Pennsylvania Highway, drawn after an earlier painting with the same title, was one of the last works Bohrod executed before entering service as an artist for the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. When it was selected for the American Institute of Graphic Arts Fifty Prints of the Year exhibition in 1944, he wrote:
"In this print I’ve tried to create a rhythm of road and hills and an accompanying spotting of architectural forms which, I hope, enhances the rhythm and in sections slows it down. Also I have tried to depict a moment of quiet loneliness. The single figure of the hitch-hiker was introduced to give point to that loneliness."
Pennsylvania Highway, drawn after an earlier painting with the same title, was one of the last works Bohrod executed before entering service as an artist for the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. When it was selected for the American Institute of Graphic Arts Fifty Prints of the Year exhibition in 1944, he wrote:
"In this print I’ve tried to create a rhythm of road and hills and an accompanying spotting of architectural forms which, I hope, enhances the rhythm and in sections slows it down. Also I have tried to depict a moment of quiet loneliness. The single figure of the hitch-hiker was introduced to give point to that loneliness."
Source
Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, Gift of Rosanna E. Smith.
Identifier
78.58
Rights
This image is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. Other uses are not permitted.