Main Street Bridge, Rochester
1908
26 1/4 x 36 in. (66.7 x 91.4 cm)
Colin Campbell Cooper
United States
(Philadelphia, PA, 1856 - 1937, Santa Barbara, CA)
Object Type:
Painting
Medium and Support:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Gift of Hiram W. Sibley
Accession Number:
1926.20
Location: Not currently on view
Colin Campbell Cooper wrote an essay in 1911 where he recommended his wife’s home town of Rochester as a subject for artists: “Rochester is filled with subjects which need no other idealization to make beautiful than an eye receptive to the glory of light and color and the ability to register these things on canvas.” Here, the artist’s receptive eye captured from a northeast angle downtown’s Main Street Bridge in contrasting colors of warm brick and the cool water. The shops and offices on the Main Street Bridge over the Genesee River illustrate Rochester’s commercial boom in this era, where every inch of space was needed to support the businesses of the central city.
[Gallery label text, 2021]