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GEORGE BENJAMIN LUKS (American, 1867-1933) High Bridge Harlem River, circa 1915 Pastel crayon on cardboard 13-1/2 x 15 inches (34.3 x 38.1 cm) Signed lower right: George Luks In 1908, the Macbeth Gallery in New York mounted an independent exhibition of artists that became known as The Eight: Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and George Luks. This show was a milestone in modern American painting and defied the constraints of traditional academic painting. The Eight were known for their gritty, realistic representations of urban development in and around New York City. Symbolizing the dawn of the technological age, bridges became a leitmotif in American modernist paintings. The High Bridge had been commissioned in the mid nineteenth century to lend the grandeur of Rome to New York, and it became a favorite of American painters who had studied in Europe. While the bridge took its design cues from the Roman aqueducts, it also incorporated the most contemporary designs of its time. Ernest Lawson's Harlem River at High Bridge from around 1915 is in the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. We are in sincere gratitude to Judith Hanson O'Toole for her generous assistance in the attribution of this lot to the hand of George Luks.