Bits of light illuminating the East River at night

There’s a moody blue-black sky over the lower end of a smoke-choked East River in this painting, “Night, East River, New York,” by Danish-born Impressionist and New York transplant Johann Berthelsen.

Streaks of flickering light from the Brooklyn side illuminate the tugboat, the bridge, and the belching smokestacks of a long-gone industrial city.

Tags: East River at night, East River painting, Johann Berthelsen, New York impressionist painters, New York in the 1930s, New York painters, tugboat East River