Shrouded in smoky grays and velvety blacks, marked by deep shadows, or shifting reflections illumined by the glow of moonlight, the night has been a continual source of artistic inspiration. These prints and photographs, exhibited with George Ault’s painting, were created by American artists between 1897 and 1955 and are evocative of night’s many moods: playful, menacing, tranquil, foreboding, mysterious, or contemplative. Together they explore urban, suburban, and natural environments and suggest the many ways in which the night was changing.

Artists used a variety of printmaking processes to create dramatic dark and light effects, ranging from Beatrice Levy’s soft passages of aquatint tones conveying a Rainy Night, to the precision of line in Paul Landacre’s wood engraving Laguna Cove. Photographers, aided by increasingly light-sensitive film, reveled in the play of dark and light, whether sharply contrasted, as in Ilse Bing’s Circus Acrobat, New York, or meticulously modulated, as in Roy DeCarava’s Car behind building.

By 1925, only half of American homes had electric power, yet in the cities, glimmering gaslights were being replaced by bright electric lights. The Federal Writers’ Project Guide to 1930s New York (1939) noted of Times Square: “Here midnight streets are more brilliant than noon, their crowds on ordinary evenings exceeding those of large town carnivals.” Headlights, streetlights, lit interiors, and the ever-brightening night skyline were altering both the appearance and the experience of the night.