Interracial Love - New York City Street Scene - Proposition - Red Light District, ca. 1970

In the 1970s, the Times Square/ Mid-Town area of New York City was a gritty place of X-rated movies, Strip Bars, Pimps, Street Walkers, and cheap by-the-hour hotels. The place was as edgy as it was magnetic. "Proposition" is a slice of life at that moment in time. Philip Reisman was an observer of New York's street life, and this work seems to depict a working girl with platform shoes and a John engaging in a romantic embrace.
Signed lower right with gallery label on verso. Framed under glass.
Reisman is a people painter. He studied at the Art Students League with George B. Bridgeman. By working at odd jobs he was able to take classes there for six years. His early paintings were candid, crowded scenes of the life he saw around him on the Lower East Side of New York: butchers, carters, peddlers, and homeless men in the Bowery. His first one-man show in 1932 was a critical success. His work is in the Smithsonian Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New York City Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
Philip Reisman, American, 1904–1992
Watercolor
27.75 - 16.50 inches
US$9,500 Plus Shipping