Description
The unrealistic and heightened colour of this painting of the Flatiron Building in New York give an exaggerated impression of the late afternoon or early morning sun breaking through the clouds on a wet and stormy day. The Flatiron Building was completed in 1902 and was the first building in New York with a steel frame. It is the oldest surviving skyscraper in the city. Designed by Daniel Burnham (1846 –1912), it is situated on the south west corner of Madison Square Park, at the intersection of 23rd Street, Broadway and 5th Avenue. The building was designed for the Fuller Construction Company and it was originally called the Fuller Building. Its unusual shape was dictated by the dimensions of the site and its resemblance to a flat iron led to its nickname, which has stuck ever since.

The Wall Street Crash in October 1929 when prices on the American stock market collapsed, marked the end of the Roaring Twenties and heralded the start of The Great Depression. Renowned as the era of jazz, flapper girls and Art Deco, the 1920s was associated as a period of prosperity and excess that flourished after the First World War.

Alfred Wolmark completed this painting in 1919. He was one of very few British artists to paint in New York so soon after the First World War, especially since all trans-Atlantic shipping was full of returning American troops and only a small number of civilians were given places on the ships.
Wolmark was born in Poland in 1877 and settled in England in 1883. He exhibited widely in London and his early work depicted Jewish life in the East End, but after spending some time in France his painting simplified and he began to use more intense colour.