H. Lyman Saÿen, born Philadelphia, PA - Untitled (#14) - n.d. - T-Shirt

A city street rises through a low-angle ink drawing, with a tall utility pole and a tram moving past rocks and shrubs.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is worked in black ink on pale grey, with a cream field around it. A utility pole stands at the right edge, and a single wire crosses the sky diagonally toward a large building with a pitched roof and tall chimneys. That diagonal cuts the scene into zones, while the pole and the building hold the vertical structure. At lower left, a tram with a dark roof and a row of windows slides past rocks and shrubs. Two small figures stand near a central tree, and trees frame both sides. The sky is built from loose, swirling strokes that contrast with the fixed bulk of the buildings.

Meaning & Symbolism

The pole and wire give the street its urban character, and the tram and standing figures mark everyday movement along the road. The looping sky reads as restless and weathered energy against the still trunks and solid architecture. H. Lyman Saÿen, born in Philadelphia, made this sheet, which is numbered fourteen in the catalogue and listed as undated. Its open, sketch-like handling belongs to the artist's direct studies of street life, where observation of ordinary scenes outweighs finish.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A drawing built on a street seen from below suits a garment worn at eye level, where the diagonal wire and the tram run across the chest and the viewer reads the scene the way the artist framed it. The loose sky strokes and the dense cluster of buildings sit against each other in the same way on the wearer's body, giving the eye a clear path from the pole at one side to the tram at the other.