Donald Shaw MacLaughlan, born - Chicago, North Dearborn Street - unknown - T-Shirt

A pencil street scene drops the viewer into a Chicago downtown corridor, where tall office blocks, an elevated railway and a line of 1930s motor cars all compete for the same stretch of roadway.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built on deep one-point perspective. A long row of windowed façades on the left recedes toward a vanishing point, while a heavier masonry building with arched upper windows and a spired tower closes the view on the right. An elevated structure crosses the street at mid-height, and parked and moving vehicles fill the roadway below it. Fine, controlled hatching in graphite grey sits on a warm cream ground, with pale sepia shading and a faint touch of red. Smoke rises from the rooftops, and small figures stand on the pavement at the left.

Meaning & Symbolism

The image treats the modern metropolis as an orderly but crowded place. The architecture forms a corridor for street life, and the smoke and steady lines of traffic signal commerce and constant movement. Donald Shaw MacLaughlan was a Canadian-born painter and printmaker who spent much of his career in Chicago, and urban views of the city formed a significant part of his work. This study shows his interest in architectural perspective and in the textures of stone, brick and window rows, rendered with a draughtsman's precision, and it belongs to the street scenes through which he recorded Chicago's commercial centre.

Wearing the Downtown Street

A street scene wraps naturally around the body. The receding perspective draws the eye down the centre of the chest, with the spired tower and the elevated line set against the shoulders and sleeves. Across a tee, the drawing reads as a full view of the city rather than a single building, so the wearer carries the whole corridor of Chicago's commercial centre into any room.