Herbert Katzman at the Museum of the City of New York

Large sections of the Museum of the City of New York are currently closed for renovation, and to prepare for a new exhibit on the Apollo Theater, which opens February 8. But it’s worth visiting before February 21 if only to catch Glorious Sky: Herbert Katzman’s New York.

Though Katzman, who died in 2004, produced many portraits and self-portraits, some still-lifes, and scenes from Paris, Prague, and Martha’s Vineyard, this exhibit centers on his paintings and drawings of New York Harbor and its bridges. The museum website gives only a taste of what his work is like. More images from the exhibit are at DNAInfo (though the slide show contains almost none of my favorites), and more about his entire career is at the website Herbert Katzman Museum.

The exhibit begins with a 1952 painting of the Brooklyn Bridge (the first image in the DNAInfo slide show). I disliked it quite a lot, though it helped make Katzman’s reputation.

But in the big gallery beyond are many chalk drawings (though some look like watercolors) in which the iconic images of the Statue of Liberty, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn and Queensboro Bridges dissolve into misty or stormy skies. I thought of the way the Woolworth Building dissolves into the fog, and of Marshall Berman’s wonderful book All That Is Solid Melts into Air, about cities and the experience of modern life.

The grayscale images reminded me of Whistler, some of the others of Turner, and the series in which Katzman returns to the same image using different colors of chalk on different colors of paper made me think of Monet’s haystacks and cathedrals repeated in different lights.