Painting

In January 1993, Leonard “Len” Rosenfeld and his second wife, Janet Hoffman, moved into an apartment at 176 Broadway, one block east of the World Trade Center. A month later, Rosenfeld watched from his window as the emergency operations unfolded after a bomb exploded in the World Trade Center parking garage on February 26, 1993. The proximity of this disaster to his new home greatly unsettled the artist who, six years later, painted a watercolor depicting himself running away from the blazing Twin Towers.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Rosenfeld was making breakfast when he heard another loud explosion followed by the sight of papers blowing outside. He rushed downstairs onto the street to investigate and saw the upper floors of the North Tower consumed in flames and smoke. He then witnessed the horrifying sight of desperate building occupants falling to their death from the fire-engulfed building. He retreated inside his apartment just as the South Tower was struck by a second hijacked aircraft. Rosenfeld and his wife were required to evacuate their lower Manhattan home for several weeks. Given the anxiety he already carried from the 1993 bombing, Rosenfeld felt traumatized by the 9/11 attacks and was haunted by memories of people plunging to their death from the Towers and the ominous connotations of planes flying through New York’s airspace. He returned to making art as a means of working through these feelings. The canvas titled Jumpers is one of the eight resulting works.

Despite mingling with famous Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Rosenfeld disavowed their renouncement of recognizable forms in art. Throughout his career, he infused his paintings with a strong narrative, saying, “I like to tell stories. I have always told stories."