Macomb's Dam Hotel by M. A. Sullivan

M. A. Sullivan · 1868-01-01

Macomb's Dam Hotel, painted by M. A. Sullivan in 1868, hangs quietly at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's the only known work by an artist whose first name history didn't bother to record.

Look at the woman in the light dress, standing near the entrance. She's the brightest figure in the composition, surrounded by men in dark formal coats. The hotel sign itself is the real subject: it names a specific place that once stood in Upper Manhattan, a gathering spot near the old Macomb's Dam across the Harlem River.

The dam was demolished in the late 1850s. The hotel survived a little longer, but by the end of the 19th century, it too was gone. No photograph of it is known to exist. This painting is what remains: a wooden hotel, a few figures on a porch, a horse-drawn cart at the right edge, and a painter we know only as M. A. Sullivan.

There's something moving about a person who made one careful painting of a building and then faded out of the record. He gave the hotel its name, its balconies, its social life on an ordinary afternoon. Then he vanished, and the hotel vanished, and all we have is this.

Details

But in 1868, a painter named Sullivan stood across the road.

Men in dark coats gather. A woman in white stands apart.

Not his first name. Not what he wanted. Just this one surviving work.

The hotel is gone. The painter is a set of initials.

The tree softens the hard rectilinear building and pushes the composition into depth; its foliage bleeds into the sky, giving the painting its only organic, painterly passage.

Transcript

This building no longer exists. But in 1868, a painter named Sullivan stood across the road. He recorded its name in bold red letters: Macomb's Dam Hotel. Men in dark coats gather. A woman in white stands apart. We know almost nothing about the painter. Not his first name. Not what he wanted. Just this one surviving work. The hotel is gone. The painter is a set of initials. The painting outlasted them both.