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4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2010.
New Year's Eve
4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2010.
4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2010.

New Year's Eve

Artist Marion Greenwood (American, 1909-1970)
CultureAmerican
Dateca. 1940
MediumLithograph
DimensionsOverall, Frame: 20 5/8 x 16 1/2 in. (52.4 x 41.9 cm)
Overall: 13 1/2 x 11 in. (34.3 x 27.9 cm)
InscribedThe print is inscribed New Year's Eve in pencil at the lower left and signed Marion Greenwood in pencil at the lower right. The print is inscribed with the number 409 on the verso. There is also an Associated American Artists sticker affixed to the back of the mount that identifies the print as one of its productions.
Credit LineGift of Edwina D. Walsh
Object number2003.19
Not on view
DescriptionThis is a lithograph of a young African-American couple celebrating New Year's Eve. They are sitting closely together at a table, covered with a checkered tablecloth, with noise makers in hand. On the right side, a balloon floats in the background.

Label TextMarion Greenwood American (1909-1970) New Year's Eve, ca. 1940 Lithograph Gift of Edwina D. Walsh 2003.19 Marion Greenwood's richly textured lithograph depicts a young Harlem couple out on the town on New Year's Eve. She shows them not in raucous celebration, but subdued and contemplative, as though suddenly mindful of the future's uncertainty. Around 1940 New York was a city still in the grip of the Great Depression and fearful of Europe's march to war. Like other "American Scene" artists, Greenwood used her prints to highlight the era's social and economic anxieties, portraying ordinary New Yorkers-especially laborers and ethnic minorities-with great sympathy and dignity. Greenwood ranks among the most liberated artists of her day. Born in Brooklyn into a family of artists, she studied art in Paris and in 1932-35 worked as a muralist in Mexico. Back in New York, she produced murals for the Works Projects Administration and lithographs like New Year's Eve. During World War II she served in the Army Medical Corps, and her quest for new subject matter would take her to Africa, India, and China. ProvenanceMrs. Edwina D. Walsh, inherited from her mother, ?-2003; Gift of Edwina D. Walsh to the Chrysler Museum of Art, 2003. Exhibition History"Women of the Chrysler: a 400-Year Celebration of the Arts," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., March 24 - July 18, 2010.