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Following World War I, Anthony Thieme immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands in 1917, working as a set designer and book illustrator in New York and Boston before settling in Rockport, Massachusetts. On Cape Ann he established a studio, taught painting classes, and became an instrumental member of the emerging artist colony there. However, Thieme never seemed to lose his Dutch roots, born in the port city of Rotterdam, he split his time in the U.S. between Rockport and St. Augustine, Florida, with a brief stop in Charleston, South Carolina, where he painted prolifically. Thieme was clearly drawn to small-town landscapes and port cities, adept at capturing the coastal light in his plein air seascapes. Thieme’s small watercolor titled Chinatown, New York, represents a unique departure from his typical subject matter. It’s not an oil of a quaint small-town scene or boats on the water, but likely a “sketch” or “study” produced on-site during a sojourn into the big city. This watercolor on paper with graphite underdrawing, has a crease down the middle of the page. However, Thieme produces the titular neighborhood and its architecture in great detail, defining windows and storefronts, streetlamps and window awnings. The New York locale is identifiable by subway kiosks on either side of the intersection and the elevated train line that appears between buildings in the distance (likely the Third Avenue line that ran along Bowery and was demolished around 1956). Thieme depicts two massive redbrick buildings in the foreground, with strings of colorful flags from various nations streaming between them, dominating the composition. People along the sidewalk appear miniscule, barely defined by a dab of paint and controlled brushstrokes, while cars on the street are lightly defined, some almost translucent in a thin wash of color. Thieme’s depiction of the neighborhood is notable for its focus on the cityscape rather than the “Orientalist” stereotypes common in art and media of that era, which focused on distinctly Asian imagery, such as Cantonese text, lanterns, or signs for new and unusual foods like chop suey (the title of a famous 1929 Edward Hopper painting). The term “China Town,” was first used in 1880 by the New York Times, describing an area that still stands at the heart of the Manhattan neighborhood today: Pell, Mott, and Doyers Streets. In the popular press the neighborhood was often associated with opium dens, gambling, and crime; prejudices that persisted throughout the 20th century. While Thieme’s depiction is devoid of these cultural signifiers; the flags hint at this history. A number of American flags are dispersed throughout the composition, their red vertical lines reflected in the striped sunshades that adorn each window, while red, white, and blue, bunting hangs across the upper stories of the building at the right. Chinatown streets often donned American flags in the early to mid-20th century as neighborhood residents displayed their patriotism amidst widespread discrimination. Some early Chinese immigrants who settled in New York were sailors and traders, but many of Chinatown’s late 19th century residents came from California. They had come to the U.S. to mine during the California Gold Rush and helped construct the first Transcontinental Railroad, but were often met with anti-Chinese sentiments that had been long-simmering and soon exacerbated by economic unrest, which culminated in the San Francisco riots of 1877. In 1882 President Chester A. Arthur would sign the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant federal law restricting immigration, which banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States for 10 years. By flying American flags, residents displayed their allegiance and patriotism to their new chosen country. Thieme also includes a couple flags from his own native Netherlands, perhaps suggesting a kinship with the neighborhood’s residents, as a fellow immigrant in America.
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