Edward Timothy Hurley, born Cincinnati, - Fountain Square- Night (Cincinnati) - 1921 - T-Shirt

This is Cincinnati's Fountain Square after dark, drawn in 1921 by Edward Timothy Hurley as an aquatint and etching on paper.

Visual Elements & Composition

The square itself is the subject, framed at night so that the city's lights and the open civic space carry the scene. The Tyler Davidson Fountain anchors the centre of the composition, with the surrounding streets and downtown buildings arranged around it. The night setting keeps the image tonal and quiet, with the fountain and architecture standing out against the dark.

Meaning & Symbolism

Fountain Square was the heart of downtown Cincinnati, a crossroads for transit, commerce and public gathering. Painted in the years after the First World War, the work records a city growing into a bustling twentieth-century metropolis, with its civic monuments and evolving streets sitting side by side. Hurley spent his career documenting the Ohio River Valley and the historic character of his home city, and this print belongs to that body of work. It treats the square as a record of municipal change and of the nocturnal life that was becoming central to American city culture.

Wearing Fountain Square

A night scene of a public square suits a shirt that is worn among people. The composition reads across the chest as a whole, with the fountain and buildings forming the focal point, and the detail of the etched lines reveals itself as the wearer moves through the day. It is a piece of Cincinnati's history that goes wherever the wearer does.