Sarah Berman, Untitled (Rainy Street Scene, New York City), 1940, oil on board, 28 x 20 ⅛ in., Mead Art Museum.
What and who do we see?
This painting of oil on board is set on a gloomy, rainy day in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In the dimly lit background, an automobile and a delivery truck drive on the street, contrasting with several light-colored, multi-story buildings. Between two taller buildings runs a river leading to a bridge with train cars in the distance. Large, dark clouds loom in the sky beyond.
The viewer’s eyes are immediately drawn to a cluster of people in the central foreground of the canvas. There are five figures, each appears to be traveling independently on the street. Four look to be women, all holding an umbrella, and one is a man. The man is to the right of the painting, shown from behind, dressed in a brown trench coat, navy pants, and a fedora. He is shrugging off the rain, headed away from the viewer.
All people are dressed in standard 1940s clothing, similar to the catalogue on the left depicting women’s rainwear. Two women’s faces are visible. The first faceless woman is hidden in the back of the group, with only her hemline, bare leg, and dark blue umbrella visible. She appears to be wearing a dark eggplant colored coat. The second woman is furthest left, sporting a coral pink coat, buttoned up over a navy dress, of which we only see a sliver at her hemline. Only a bit of her side profile is visible. Both women carry nearly identical navy umbrellas.
The rightmost woman struggles with her coral umbrella in the wind. It has turned inside out, and she is holding on tightly, trying to keep it from blowing away. She wears a light grey-blue coat over her tomato red dress, black shoes, and green beret. She has golden-blonde, chin-length hair and fair skin with rosy cheeks. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her lips pursed from frustration with the umbrella.
In the center foreground, the last woman is wearing an ashy red clay coat over a marigold yellow dress with orange trim. Her coat is also fully buttoned up to defend against the wind. She has control of her umbrella, which is vibrant emerald green with cranberry red trim. She appears to be looking at something to the right of the viewer, with her head demurely cocked toward her left shoulder. Her hair is honey-blonde with a cherry red beret. She appears pleased and jolly despite the weather, and shares a cunning smile. She is almost flirting with the viewer as her hip is jutting out, displaying her femininity.
Each individual in the painting is focused on their own worlds, and they are not interacting with one another. The scene has a sense of movement and intention, with the front woman flirting with the viewer, another struggling with her umbrella, and the man hurrying off in another direction. The two women in the front have very curvy bodies and stand in ways that emphasize their figures. The near invisibility of the first faceless woman and the lack of profile of the other faceless woman emphasize that their attention is directed elsewhere. The man walking away displays no interest in interacting with the group and does not offer to assist the woman struggling with her umbrella.
About the Artist
In Joe Gould’s Secret, author Joseph Mitchell described Sarah Berman: “She had come here from Russia when she was a girl and while making a living sewing in sweatshops she had taught herself to paint. Although her paintings were awkward, they were imaginative and they had a hallucinatory quality, and they had been admired and highly praised by a number of people in the art world.”1 Although Mitchell describes Berman as coming from Russia, she actually immigrated from Ukraine due to religious persecution, as she comes from a Jewish family. She relocated originally to Pennsylvania, then to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she worked in sweatshops and began her art endeavors. She likely produced this piece in her studio in this area of Manhattan.
With no art education, she is often coined as a Naive or primitive artist. She is remembered for “memory painting,” a technique in which she would observe a scene and attempt to reproduce it later in art.2 Thus, the viewer can reasonably assume this painting resembles a moment in time she experienced. Her art includes emotional facial expressions and has very few straight lines, as is seen in this piece. The people’s bodies are very curvy, and where straight lines are expected, they still seem to bend as they go. This adds an element of expression to the piece as Berman was able to decide where to draw the viewer’s attention.
Berman was a very progressive member of New York society, often creating art that included diversity in times when it was not common.3 While this piece does not include racial diversity, it depicts almost solely women. This could stem from her working experiences, as most sweatshop workers at the time were female immigrants.4 Each woman painted has an umbrella preserving their appearance, whereas the male figure is trudging alone with no protection but a hat. The women are depicted as strong and independent, while still displaying femininity. The feminine energy is prominent in the painting. This suggests that Berman’s beliefs appreciate the independent, hard-working women and their contributions.
Possibly the most fascinating aspect of Berman’s career is that she never sold her work. She painted for herself, to have pieces of memory and emotions rather than profit. Her authenticity and distinct style were a major reason for her recognition and respect in the art community.
Feminism in the 1940s
Having immigrated from Ukraine, Berman experienced significant differences in women’s rights. In the 1940s Ukraine, women were encouraged to pursue education and roles in the workforce, while in the United States, women were confined to domestic roles and pressured to maintain traditional beauty standards.5 It is interesting to consider that these experiences underlie the content of the painting. By incorporating well-dressed women shielding themselves from rain, it is apparent that they are attempting to adhere to expected beauty standards. Their juxtaposition with the man to the right, who walks without an umbrella, shows the difference in expectations. The central woman seems to defy these norms, embracing the storm and smiling while others fear the weather’s threat to their appearance. Her joy and resilience hint at a rebellion against American standards.
The Weather
The weather sets the tone of this painting. Without the billowing storm clouds, wind, and rain, the piece would lose the dark, gloomy tone. This ominous tone allows for the stark contrast with the brightly colored women. As mentioned in Weather as a Medium: Toward a Meteorological Art by Janine Randerson, “Rain—as weather in general is—is experienced as a ‘highly affective phenomenon that can evoke a strong sense of wonder, delight, or terror, as well as a myriad of minor perceptions every moment.’”6 Thus, Berman’s experiences in the rain are translated into this piece and the individuals in the scene. We can see how the power of the weather is prevalent in perception and memory.
The wind dominates the figures, carrying the umbrellas and the need for buttoned-up coats. One woman wrestles with her umbrella while the lone man hunches away, withdrawn and isolated. Berman’s depiction of the weather demonstrates our lack of control over the natural world, even in a location defined by its innovation and human power, such as New York City. Contrary to the others, the central woman appears calm, seemingly unfazed. She seems to have found joy, or at least levity, in the situation and appreciation for the world around her. Her vibrant colors depict her acceptance and peace. Berman depicts this central woman to illustrate resilience and how one can accept nature’s forces with grace, rather than resistance.
Provenance
This object was gifted to the Mead Art Museum by Steven M. Jacobsen in 1953.
Footnotes
- Joseph Mitchell, Joe Gould’s Secret (New York: Vintage Books, 1996). ↩︎
- Dore Ashton, “Art: Evergood Exhibition,” New York Times, April 6, 1960, 47. ↩︎
- Hideaki Sasajima, “Organizational Account of Symbolic Boundaries in Urban Cultures: Social Network Analysis of New York Art World from 1940 to 1969,” Poetics 93 (2022): 1–13. ↩︎
- Museum of the City of New York, Garment Workers: Upheaval in the Garment Trades, 1900–1915, ongoing exhibition, accessed April 29, 2025, https://www.mcny.org/exhibition/garment-workers. ↩︎
- Chornij Halyna Vasylivna, “Ideological Influence of the Soviet Authority on Women in the Western Regions of the USSR (Mid-1940s–First Half of 1950s),” Journal of Education, Health, and Sport 9, no. 4 (2019): 662–674. ↩︎
- Janine Randerson, Weather as Medium: Toward a Meteorological Art (MIT Press, 2018). ↩︎
You must be logged in to post a comment.