1913

Old Waterworks, Fairmount

American, 1856 - 1937

Philadelphia-native Colin Campbell Cooper relocated to New York City in 1904, lured by the dynamic growth and skyscraping architecture of the new metropolis. Cooper's Old Waterworks, Fairmount is a rare, if not unique, treatment of Philadelphia from his later career and illustrates the artist's enduring interest in historic as well as modern architecture. Completed in 1822 along the bank of the Schuylkill River, the Fairmount Water Works remains an icon of historic Philadelphia. The Water Works was decommissioned in 1911, just two years before Cooper's depiction, endowing the painting with a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era of American architecture and history.