Harold Weston, born Merion, PA 1894-died New York City 1972 Search this
Medium:
pencil on paper
Dimensions:
sheet: 5 × 7 in. (12.7 × 17.8 cm) mount: 18 × 30 1/2 in. (45.7 × 77.5 cm)
Type:
Drawing
Date:
ca. 1949
Exhibition Label:
On his own initiative and without a commission, Harold Weston chronicled the construction of the United Nations headquarters in six paintings he produced between 1949 and 1952. These studies offer a glimpse of his working process for creating the finished paintings, one of which hangs in this room. Weston offered to donate his series, hoping it would be exhibited in the Secretariat Building, but despite praise from such luminaries as Eleanor Roosevelt, the UN declined his gift. Officials may have viewed a more contemporary, avant-garde style like abstract expressionism more in keeping with the UN's future-minded spirit and mission. Weston subsequently gave the paintings to the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in 1955.
