Jewelled City (Chicago), 1931

Gerald K. Geerlings' Jewelled City is one of his best-known architectural prints, presenting Chicago as a glittering modern metropolis at night. A rare print from an edition of 32, the work is held in numerous major museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Trained as an architect before turning to printmaking, Geerlings brought a sharp sense of structure, scale, and perspective to his city subjects, while the rich tonal contrasts of aquatint give the scene its atmospheric depth. The elevated viewpoint, illuminated windows, and darkened towers capture the glamour and intensity of the American city in the Art Deco period.