Ash Heap '19 Westinghouse '39

This otherworldly woodcut is set in a real-world location: the Corona ash dump in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Originally the site of a proposed new industrial port in the early 20^th century, its owner imported trainloads of ash from Manhattan to fill in marshlands—an estimated 50 million cubic yards, averaging thirty feet in height. When that scheme failed and residential housing expanded into the area, it became harder to ignore the stark contrast between All-American homes and the Corona dump, which was the model for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Valley of the Ashes” in his novel The Great Gatsby (1925). Pont strips away most of the area’s details to create topographic forms with patterned lines, seemingly alive beneath the tiny trains riding over them. The print’s extreme contrast in lighting, especially overhead, creates an apocalyptic tone to the scene. One person in the foreground carries a large bag, perhaps alluding to the removal of encampments (by bulldozers) during a redevelopment program in 1938-39. New York Parks Commissioner Robert Moses created a 900-acre site that included grounds for the 1939 World’s Fair, whose theme was “The World of Tomorrow.” Pont’s title probably alludes to one of the fair’s corporate participants: Westinghouse built a “Hall of Electrical Living” that it called “a forecast of the future as foretold by the industrial and technical developments of today” (Official Guide Book 156). In the hands of the evangelical Pont, however, the promise of technological new ages are built upon the ashes of earlier ones. Compare this woodcut to Pont’s similar Corona Ash Dump '29 World's Fair Food Section '39.

About the Artist

Born in Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, France, Pont was abandoned by his mother at three months old in New York City and raised by a German immigrant couple. Like many children during those times, he was working by age fifteen in a variety of jobs. A serious illness in 1918—he was given six months to live—led Pont to become a born-again Christian; thereafter, his religious studies and eventual ministries melded with an exceptional artistic talent. As a book jacket described, he “entered into an unusual evangelistic career, drawing scenes and figure groups from the Bible in full color while preaching” (World’s Collision). Pont studied at the Pratt Institute and, as a 35-year-old carpenter and housepainter, won a scholarship at the Art Students League. Most of Pont’s work for the Federal Art Project took the form of woodcut prints, often with nautical subject matter. During this period Pont also was a tireless commercial illustrator whose output ranged from extremely technical diagrams, like Joseph Leeming’s Fun With Paper (1939); to numerous book covers for the evangelical minister H.A. Ironside; to more evocative works like Alan Viliers’ Whalers of the Midnight Sun (1936). This last title stands in for many illustrations for maritime-themed books, often for younger readers. Pont himself published an intriguing synthesis of theology, speculative architecture, and illustration called The Tabernacle Alphabet (1946). In later years he moved to Wilton, CT living in a home he himself had constructed. He passed away in 1971.11 works at Philadelphia Museum of Art. 4 works at Smithsonian American Art Museum. 16 works at Metropolitan Museum of Art. 4 works at National Gallery of Art. 3 images at FAP.

Works Consulted: Official Guide Book, New York World’s Fair 1939. Exposition Publications, 1939 Link; Charles E. Pont, The World’s Collision (W.A. Wilde, 1956); “Charles E. Pont,” Wikipedia Link