The Tenants of the Fifth Floor (1935)

This small document dated December 30, 1935, offers a surprisingly human glimpse into Seymour Fogel’s everyday world as a young New York artist. Typed at the top is a collective complaint: “We, the tenants of the fifth floor demand more heat! The cold makes it impossible to concentrate on work.” Beneath it is a list of signatures, including Fogel’s, suggesting a shared studio building or workplace where artists worked side by side through the winter.

We cannot be completely certain of every identity represented by these signatures, but the names appear to read as William Zorach, Milton Horn, Joseph Raskin, Seymour Fogel, Ascher Jacobs, Nathaniel (surname unclear), Alice Campbell, Margaret B. Kane, Bernard Bogeloff, Irving Lefcourt, J. F. Levinson, Imogene (surname unclear), Granville Jones, and F. Hesketh.

Several of these names could plausibly correspond to well-known artists active in New York during the 1930s, including William Zorach, a significant American modernist, Milton Horn, a sculptor associated with WPA era work, Joseph Raskin, a New York painter and printmaker, and Margaret Brassler Kane, a noted figurative sculptor. If those identifications hold, this sheet quietly places Fogel within a lively, working community of artists navigating the practical realities of studio life during the Great Depression.

For our family, it is a favorite artifact because it captures something timeless. While history was being made artists were still showing up to work, doing their best to create, and joining together over the small necessities that made that work possible.