View of Pittsburg

Date1920

Artist/Maker John Kane (1860-1934)

MediumHeavy wood pulp art card and pencil.

DimensionsPrimary Support; irreg.: 12 x 15 7/8in. (30.5 x 40.3cm); Composition: 10 1/8 x 14 1/2in. (25.7 x 36.8cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. & Mrs. Foster McCarl, Jr.

Object number1976.202.1

DescriptionView of Pittsburgh from the river. In the foreground, a steamboat named the "Pennsylvania" moves left, and a small sailboat sails away from the steamboat toward the right of the composition. Farther back on the right sits a steamboat named the "Home," and two other steamboats named the "Lark" and "Erie" are moored along the shoreline. Several barges move through the water on the left. In the background, a town nestles below a hill and spreads along the riverside. The buildings are of varying sizes, and many smokestacks spew smoke into the sky. A church steeple towers above the other buildings at right center.
Label TextBorn in Scotland of Irish parents, Kane immigrated to America and settled in Pittsburgh when he was nineteen. He worked in steel mills, coal and coke mines, as a street paver, freight car painter, photo retoucher, and railroad worker. Kane's wanderings from job to job across the country were prompted by his profound sense of loss over the death of an infant son in 1904.

This drawing of Pittsburgh was inspired by a similar view that appeared on a transfer-printed Staffordshire plate first manufactured by Ralph and James Clews between 1829 and 1836. Kane's devotion to his adopted city was best expressed in his autobiography, "Sky Hooks" (1938): ". . . I find beauty everywhere in Pittsburgh. The city is my own. I have worked on all parts of it...And so I see it both the way God made it and as man has changed it."
MarkingsBottom center printed in pencil: "Pittsburg." At bottom right within confines of composition appears: "JOHN KANE/1920". Reverse, bottom R quarter in pencil: "COPIED FROM AN OLD PRINT 1920/JOHN KANE".
ProvenanceFound in Reckford, PA; before 1974-1976, Foster McCarl, Jr. [1923-2007] and Muriel Phillips McCarl [1923-2012] (Beaver Falls, PA); 1976-present, given to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.