Commercial ships and clouds of smoke crowd a narrow waterway exiting the Brooklyn Navy Yard in John Whorf’s painting Brooklyn Navy Yard. Produced in 1950, Whorf created the scene with gouache and watercolor on paper, which, coupled with his outstanding skills, captures the industrious yard in all its bustling glory. Viewers are drawn to the billowing clouds of smog, an ode to the stylistic influences of Winslow Homer. Whorf’s dark strokes that make up scaffolding and cranes are just barely visible behind the clouds, giving an effect of dense smoke. Known for his seascapes, landscapes and nudes, Whorf captured the Brooklyn Navy Yard at its zenith.
Founded in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was built to fit and design American commercial and war ships. The War of 1812 brought the yard considerable refit work, and the first original ship to be built at the yard was the USS Ohio. Over the next 30 years, the Brooklyn Navy Yard undertook many building projects, including four sloops of war and the USS Somers. During the Civil War, a staggering 6,000 people were employed at the yard and produced 16 brand-new warships and converted 416 commercial vessels into warships for the Union.
The yard would continue to build vessels through World War II, when it earned the nickname the “Can-Do Shipyard,” for its enormous output. It was the shipyard’s busiest era in its history, employing 71,000 civilians, 4,657 of which were women. The battleship Missouri was constructed during this time and would later be the site of the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. In the wake of WWII, the yard produced aircraft carriers and other warships. It was at this time that Whorf’s interest in memorializing the yard began.
John Whorf was born in Boston in 1903 to artistic parents who encouraged him to study at the Museum of Fine Arts. Whorf, however, preferred learning through experience over formal education and moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the age of 15 to study art. Inspired by the works of Edward Hopper and John Singer Sargent, Whorf adopted similar watercolor techniques that lent themselves to capturing vivid, lively seascapes. Today, Brooklyn Navy Yard allows observers to view what the ship-building industry looked like 75 years ago. Although the yard was sold in 1996 to the city of New York, Whorf’s painting is a testament to one of the most notable navy yards in the world.
This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue.
