Born in Muro Lucano, near Naples, Italy, Joseph Stella is best known for his painting Brooklyn Bridge, 1919 a futurist work that is an icon of the Industrial Age.

He arrived in the United States in 1896 and studied medicine and pharmacology and then attended the Art Students League under William Merritt Chase. From 1900 -1909, he was an illustrator, especially interested in immigrant life in New York. One of his assignments was in Pittsburgh to do a series of industrial drawings, and this experience seems to have begun his interest in the subject of cities and the way industry affected people's lives.

From 1909 to 1912, he was in Europe, particularly France and Italy, and associated with modernists...