365 Days at the Met

 April 4, 2023 Gallery 902  largely centers on oil paintings, most of them executed in the 1920s and 1930s, that reflect the theme of urban America. Four large works by Florine Stettheimer line one wall and, through cartoon-like, fanciful images, depict key aspects of New York City (or at least the New York City of its prosperous residents): Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, museums, and the theater district. Reginald Marsh used a more realistic style in showing men lining the Bowery. There's also a 1930 Hopper painting of an eating place with a sign in the window advertising tables for ladies. The placard explains that such establishments provided safe havens for women; a few decades earlier, women eating alone were viewed as prostitutes. The painting that initially perplexed me the most is Charles Demuth's 1928 work entitled "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold"; never have I been so glad to read the Met's explanation. I learn that Demuth created this picture, which measures ab