Behind the Square

Niles Spencer's work shares an affinity with the Precisionists who were interested in subjects of the machine age--factories and industrial or urban architecture. Unlike the Precisionists, however, Spencer was a subtle and sophisticated colorist who analyzed and refined his subjects until he found an innate logic to their contruction. His motifs are views not from the street level but from the window of a house, a hotel or a passing train. The diagonal movements, the central light source which throws foreground buildings into shadow and a rising spatial recession are compositional devices introduced in Behind the Square which he will use again throughout his career. The title refers to Washington Square in Greenwich Village and the stepped pyramid shape at the upper right is the building One Fifth Avenue, completed only three years before the painting was made.