Brooklyn Bridge
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
72.4 × 91.8 cm (28 1/2 × 36 1/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16545
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Although best known for his bucolic views of the countryside near his Connecticut home, New York City was Henry Ward Ranger’s primary place of residence, and the artist found inspiration in the urban environment. In Brooklyn Bridge he recorded one of the greatest icons of modernity. Completed in 1883, this impressive structure was still the longest suspension bridge in the world when Ranger painted it sixteen years later. Yet instead of emphasizing its massive scale or modern construction the ar...
About the Artist
Henry Ward Ranger · 1858–1916
Henry Ward Ranger was born in 1858 in Syracuse, New York, and grew up to become one of the leading American landscape painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He received his early training in the United States before traveling extensively in Europe, where he spent significant time studying in Holland and England. The Dutch Barbizon painters — particularly the Hague School ar...