A Railroad Station Waiting Room

c. 1940

Raphael Soyer

Painter, American, born Russia, 1899 - 1987

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Raphael Soyer’s A Railroad Station Waiting Room presents two common and related themes in the artist’s work: people waiting and urban alienation. He frequently painted groups of figures that are, in his own words, “disassociated from one another even when they’re painted together.” This scene captures the moods of a diverse group of travelers in the Harlem–125th Street Station of the New York Central Railroad as they wait for trains to take them to the Bronx, New Haven, or other destinations.

A man in a brown suit staves off boredom by engrossing himself in his newspaper. A woman seated in the foreground in a brilliant red crocheted hat leans on a paper that has been unfolded and refolded several times over, as if she has exhausted her reading material and now resigns herself to an unrelieved wait. Other travelers smoke, yawn, or lose themselves in thought. Soyer also conveys the monotony of the wait through various formal means. He repeats the alternating colors and vertical lines of the station’s ticket windows and wood-paneled walls, as well as the rectangles on the wainscoting below, with marked uniformity. These recurring elements echo the four adult figures on the bench, whose backs slump one after the next in a series of parallel curving lines.

In 1943 A Railroad Station Waiting Room won an award and medal in the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Eighteenth Biennial Exhibition and the artist received these in person from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She praised his work, saying, “I felt as though I were passing through that waiting room, which I have done so many times, and looking at the people myself.”

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: A Railroad Station Waiting Room, c. 1940

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Frank K.M. Rehn Gallery, New York): purchased March 1943 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1940

  • Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 27 November - 8 January 1941, no. 149.

1941

  • Raphael Soyer, Associated American Artists Galleries, New York, 18 March - 7 April 1941, no. 49, as Railroad Waiting Room.

  • Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 30 October 1941 - 4 January 1942, no. 192, as Railroad Waiting Room.

1943

  • 138th Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1943, no. 126, as The Waiting Room.

  • Eighteenth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 March - 2 May 1943, no. 84, as Waiting Room.

1949

  • Juliana Force and American Art, a Memorial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 24 September - 30 October 1949, no. 116, as Waiting Room.

1958

  • The Iron Horse in Art, Fort Worth Art Center, 1958, no. 101, as Waiting Room.

1959

  • American National Exhibition, Moscow, 1959, no. 24, as Waiting Room.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the American National Exhibition in Moscow, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1959, no. 11.

1967

  • Raphael Soyer, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center, University of North Carolina; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts [Ohio]; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Des Moines Art Center, 1967, no. 40, as Waiting Room.

1978

  • The William A. Clark Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 26 April - 16 July 1978, unnumbered catalogue.

1980

  • Guy Pène du Bois: Artist About Town, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, 1980-1981, no. 105, as Waiting Room.

1981

  • Of Time and Place: American Figurative Art from the Corcoran Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Cincinnati Art Museum; San Diego Museum of Art; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga; Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Des Moines Art Center; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1981-1983, no. 55, as Waiting Room.

1984

  • Raphael Soyer's New York: People and Places, The Cooper Union, Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery, New York; Boston University Art Gallery, 1984, checklist no. 20.

1998

  • The Forty-Fifth Biennial: The Corcoran Collects, 1907–1998, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 17 July - 29 September 1998, unnumbered catalogue.

2004

  • Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, unpublished checklist.

2005

  • Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 94.

2008

  • The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

2013

  • American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013 - 28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

1943

  • Frost, Rosamund. "Wartime Biennial is Hand-Picked this Year." Art News 42, no. 4 (1-14 April 1943): 19.

  • "The 18th Corcoran Biennial [exh. review]." Magazine of Art 36, no. 4 (April 1943): 136 repro.

  • "Pennsylvania Annual [exh. review]." Art Digest 17, no. 9 (1 February 1943): 8 repro., 9.

  • "Painting by Mattson Wins First Prize at Corcoran Biennial." The Washington Evening Star (10 March 1943): 5 repro.

  • "3 N.Y. Painters Win Corcoran Gallery Awards." New York Herald Tribune (11 March 1943): 11 repro.

  • "Art Prizes Awarded Here to 4 Painters." Washington Times-Herald (11 March 1943): 27.

  • "Corcoran Winners." Art Digest 17, no. 12 (15 March 1943): 8 repro.

  • Berryman, Florence S. "Corcoran Art Gallery's Biennial Exhibition [exh. review]." The Washington Star (21 March 1943): E5.

  • "Five Thousand Attend Preview of Corcoran's 18th Biennial Exhibition." The Washington Star (21 March 1943): A3, repro.

  • The Poe Sisters. "Corcoran Art Preview Here Draws Crowd [exh. review]." Washington Times Herald (21 March 1943): B1 repro., 2.

  • "In the Realm of Art: The Corcoran and Local Shows." The New York Times (21 March 1943): 2:7.

  • Watson, Jane. "Corcoran Show, Although Small, Displays Freshness and Spirit [exh. review]." The Washington Post (21 March 1943): 5:2 repro.

  • Roosevelt, Eleanor. "My Day." New York World Telegram (22 March 1943): 2:17.

1960

  • Larkin, Oliver. Art and Life in America. Revised and enlarged. New York, 1960: 433 repro.

  • Pierson Jr., William H., and Martha Davidson, eds. Arts of the United States: A Pictorial Survey. New York, 1960: 360.

1961

  • Gutman, Walter K., Jerome Klein, and Raphael Soyer. Raphael Soyer: Paintings and Drawings. New York, 1961: 78 repro.

1972

  • Goodrich, Lloyd. Raphael Soyer. New York, 1972: 70, 124-25 repro.

1973

  • Phillips, Dorothy W. A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Vol. 2: Painters born from 1850 to 1910. Washington, 1973: 161 repro., 162.

1974

  • Baigell, Matthew. The American Scene: American Painting of the 1930's. New York, 1974: 201 repro.

1975

  • Getlein, Frank. "Bill Corcoran's Collection IS America." Art Gallery 18, 4 (January 1975): 21.

1980

  • Kotz, Mary Lynn. "John Brademas: 'Touchstone of the Arts.'" ARTnews 79, no. 7 (September 1980): 94 repro.

1981

  • Ostrow, Joanne. "Americans at the Corcoran [exh. review]." The Washington Post (2 October 1981): Weekend: 5.

1984

  • Baigell, Matthew. A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture. Revised edition, New York, 1984: 271, repro.

1994

  • Lucie-Smith, Edward. American Realism. New York, 1994: 134, 135, repro.

1996

  • Apgar, Garry, Shaun O'L. Higgins, and Colleen Striegel. The Newspaper in Art. Spokane, 1996: 73, 141, repro.

  • Baigell, Matthew. A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture. Revised edition, New York, 1996: 271, repro.

1999

  • Heyd, Milly. Mutual Reflections: Jews and Blacks in American Art. Brunswick, New Jersey, 1999: 73, repro.

2000

  • Cash, Sarah, with Terrie Sultan. American Treasures of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. New York, 2000: 201, repro.

2002

  • Kushner, Marilyn S. "Exhibiting Art at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959: Domestic Politics and Cultural Diplomacy." Journal of Cold War Studies 4, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 24.

2003

  • Miura, Atsushi, and Reiko Kokatsu. Railways in Art: Inventing the Modern [Tetsudo to kaiga]. Exh. cat. Tokyo Station Gallery; Hiroshima Museum of Art; Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya; Fukuoka Art Museum, Tokyo and Fukuoka, 2003: 130, repro., 270.

2011

  • Strong, Lisa. "Raphael Soyer, A Railroad Station Waiting Room." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 250-251, 283, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Raphael / Soyer

Wikidata ID

Q46634965

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