Arnold Friedman , Post Office Parcel Post Window, 1935

Arnold Friedman worked as a clerk for decades at the Station Y, the branch at 3rd Avenue and East 67th Street in New York City. This present work was done two years after his retirement. This remarkable document of the bleak nature and structure of daily post office life is captured by one of it's own who was a Postal Clerk/Fine Artist. The strikingly original composition has a black and a white postal worker placed on the extreme ends of the pictorial space. Breaking with academic tradition, they face outside of the picture. In doing so, the center part of the picture is purposely left wide open and creates a pathway that leads your eye into a mid-ground space and then a deeper and even deeper space. Although packed together, the people are looking away from one another. The packages are a metaphor for the people, crammed together but apart. Friedman captures the dehumanizing and impersonal character of a Manhattan post office where people are no more than packages. Signed, dated, and inscribed "New York P.O. STA. Y" lower left, - Elegantly framed
Provenance: Sotheby's, New York, 20 June 1985, Lot 229. Hirschl & Adler, New York.
Oil on Wood Panel
15.25 - 30 inches
US$50,000 Plus shipping