Night in the Black City
Artist
Albert Bloch
(American, 1882 - 1961)
Date1931
MediumPen and ink on paper
DimensionsFramed: 21 5/8 × 17 5/8 × 1 3/4 inches (54.93 × 44.77 × 4.45 cm)
Credit LineGift of Scott Heffley
Object number2022.42.3
Inscribed"AB/1931" in the lower right corner of the image, and "Night in the Black City" at lower left, both in black ink.
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionThis vertically oriented monochromatic pen-and-ink drawing is filled with busy lines. It depicts a nighttime urban scene that features densely spaced buildings on either side of a street that extends from the lower left of the composition at a diagonal up towards the upper right quadrant of the image and culminating at what appears to be a cathedral-like structure. The moon hangs low in the darken sky below which various figures walk and huddle along the street. A dog hunches in the foreground facing the viewer.ProvenanceInherited from the artist by his wife, Anna Francis Bloch (1913-2014), 1961-1990s;
By exchange from Anna Bloch by Scott Heffley, Kansas City, MO, 1990s-2022 [1];
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2022.
NOTES:
[1] Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, Albert Bloch Papers, Box 11, Artwork lists and ownership notes, Kansas City: Scott Heffley, copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. Bloch traded Night in the Black City to Heffley for Luminous Night, a pen drawing Heffley had bought from Ketterer Kunst.
Copyright© Estate of Albert Bloch
Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information,
is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete.
Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a
particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum.
If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image,
please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.
