Engine Room

Engine Room depicts the power plant of a large steamship. In 1925 Cook spent several months as the navigator of a cargo steamer that sailed from New York to San Francisco via the Panama Canal, providing him ample opportunity to observe the inner workings of a ship. Cook severely cropped the composition and concentrated on the overall shapes of objects rather than details so that the viewer experiences the machinery as an abstract design. The massive engine dwarfs a man in the center of the composition, presenting a somewhat disconcerting impression of a person overwhelmed by machines.