Lili Réthi: Artist as Construction Worker

An expat artist captures the immense scale in the building of the World Trade Center Towers.

During my recent visit to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, I was struck by the emotional display of artifacts, imagery and personal stories about the attacks on World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001.

The World Trade Center site, fully excavated, with construction beginning on the site's below ground parking levels. The PATH tunnel is visible towards the bottom. On the right side, the Hudson River and West Side Highway is depicted alongside the beginning construction of Battery Park City, © 1968 Lili Réthi

Also on display were sketches by Austrian expat artist Lili Réthi (1894 - 1969). Commissioned by the Port Authority in 1968, during the construction of the World Trade Center Towers, her drawings capture a time of hope and fearlessness.

Zeppelin LZ 127 Under Construction, Friedrichshafen, pencil on paper, © 1933 Lili Réthi Papers, Smithsonian Institution, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Washington DC

At a young age, Réthi found her passion for drawing construction and construction workers. Early in her career, she drew building and engineering projects across Europe, including shipyards in Hamburg and canals in Belgium. At the age of 22, she even went undercover as a miner in the Ruhr, Germany coal mines to capture accurate portraits of workers in action. 

By 1938, her commissions elevated her growing artistic status, especially with the Third Reich. With war imminent in Europe, the erosion of her personal rights as a Jewish woman, and an invitation from Hermann Göring to create propaganda images for the Nazi regime, she left (escaped) for England, never to return to her homeland in Austria.

“When I was a little girl in Vienna, I used to take walks and watch men building houses. I was fascinated by the men working as well as the excitement of watching the building grow.”  - Lili Réthi

Réthi traveled to the United States in 1939 with a commission from The Illustrated London News to illustrate the New York World’s Fair. She applied for U.S. Citizenship upon arrival.