Building The Cofferdam

Walter Elmer Schofields Building The Cofferdam from around 1914 is an oil on canvas that exemplifies the American Impressionist painters approach to the industrial landscape, in which the construction of a cofferdam, a temporary enclosure built within a body of water to allow the enclosed area to be pumped dry for construction work, is rendered with the same chromatic richness and atmospheric subtlety that he brought to his more conventional landscape subjects. Schofield, who was a member of the Pennsylvania Impressionist colony at New Hope and one of the most accomplished landscape painters in America in the early 20th century, produced paintings of the industrial landscape that are among the most significant works in the tradition of American industrial art, combining the chromatic vocabulary of Impressionism with the subject matter of American industry in a way that challenged the distinction between the beautiful and the useful that had structured the American landscape tradition. The cofferdam, with its massive wooden structure and the workers who are building it, provided Schofield with a subject that combines the Monumental form of industrial construction with the human drama of physical labor, creating an image that is simultaneously a record of engineering practice and a celebration of the productive energy of American industry. The oil on canvas medium, applied with the broad brushwork and chromatic richness of Impressionist technique, creates a surface in which the industrial landscape is rendered as a series of color sensations rather than a documentary record.

Schofields industrial landscapes are significant contributions to the tradition of American Impressionism and the broader history of American industrial art, and Building The Cofferdam demonstrates the combination of Impressionist chromatic richness and industrial subject matter that makes his work significant. The painting influenced the development of American industrial landscape painting.

An oil on canvas by Schofield from around 1914 depicting the construction of a cofferdam, combining Pennsylvania Impressionist chromatic richness with the Monumental form and human drama of industrial construction in a significant contribution to American industrial landscape painting.