Art & Travel New York City

Art and travel are both my life’s work and my passion. Always travelling with a camera and a sketch book in hand, seeking inspiration, exploring the geography, art, architecture and history of a place. Choosing a destination, reading about the history and culture, and novels. Discovering a place I have never been before. Seeing a work of art I have only previously viewed in a book is both exhilarating and inspiring.

This will be the first in a series about some places I have explored over the past many decades, and the art that resulted from those journeys.

 

NEW YORK CITY

For about a decade in the early 2000’s we went to New York City each year, once early in the spring and again late in the fall. I had visited New York City often as a child, attending family celebrations with my mother’s extended family. These later visits, with my wife, initially involved meeting friends and staying in hotels. For several years we often enjoyed the privilege of staying with friends in their Manhattan loft, where the view over the rooftops of water towers, and to the north the Empire State building and the Chrysler building are especially inspiring at dusk, and night.

We became familiar with lower Manhattan, taking the metro in all directions and walking miles each day. A favourite walk was back and forth across the Brooklyn Bridge, often every day. And later the High Line, and through Central Park in all directions as we explored the city. Visiting galleries, always MOMA and the MET and the Guggenheim, and Neue Galerie, and the Jewish Museum, the Frick and so many others.

Refreshments taken at Bemelmans Bar, the Four Seasons bar in the Seagram Building, the Grand Central Oyster Bar or in any of the many lovely hotel bars. In the spring the ginkgo trees were at their most spectacular, and in November the ice was ready for skating at the rink at Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park and Central Park.

During those years I created many New York City paintings, for several exhibitions at the Roberts Gallery. Much of the work has sold over the years, but I do have a small selection of works still available.

View from 13th Street, lithograph 11 x 16 $500

Brooklyn Bridge, lithograph 11 x 16 $500

Times Square NYC, lithograph 11 x 16 $500

Atlas NYC Pastel 30 x 22 $1925.00 SOLD

McSorley’s Old Ale House, Pastel 18 x 24 $1900.

NYC Watertower #2, pastel 18 x 24 $1900.

Ulysses Tavern, Pastel 18 x 24 $1900

Rooftop View from 13th Street, NYC #4 22 x 30 o/c $3400

NYC Rooftop View from 13th #3 20 x 24 o/c $2500

NYC Rooftop View 13th #2 20 x 24 o/c $2500

NYC Rooftop view from 13th #1 20 x 24 o/c $2500

View Towards Bryant Park NYC 22 x 30 o/c $3400

Ontario Society of Artists - Honouring Life Members

Ontario Society of Artists - Honouring Life Members

Exhibition opens 28 September 2025 and continues to 23 October 2025 at the Cedar Ridge Creative Centre in Scarborough, Ontario.

Pastel painting - The Harbour at Night, Newfoundland

Pastel painting - The Harbour at Night, Newfoundland

Ten years ago we bought a beautiful old, 2 story, wood framed house on the Bonavista Peninsulas, in Old Bonaventure, Newfoundland, We loved the house and the location, the landscape of the area, and the ocean views of Trinity Bay,

I have been inspired by the harbours up and down the coast, but especially by our working harbour with it’s old buildings, wooden stages, fishing premises, the old cemetery, and the fishing boats of all sizes and colours which come and go, in and out of the harbour. Over the years I have made many on-site sketches and worked those up into paintings, combining different elements and views into an imagined, dreamlike landscape, sometimes visions at night, often with icebergs floating by, lit by the moon and stars.

Mediterraneo - Roberts Gallery 15 November 2025

It has been a busy year. I spent the winter in Sicily and Malta, sketching every day. This spring and summer I developed 20 of these sketches into pastels.

In the spring I spent each day in my Newfoundland studio, preparing the charcoal underpaintings.

Over the summer in the island studio on Georgian Bay I completed the pastels, celebrating the colours of the landscape and towns on these two Mediterranean islands.

This exhibition is titled Mediterraneo, and opens November 15, 2025 at the Roberts Gallery Toronto.

For more information and to see images please visit

www.alanstein.art

www.robertsgallery.net