An Edward Laning Gallery 

In the March 1933 edition of Creative Art, James W. Lane did a feature article on Edward Laning. In his opening paragraphs he wrote:

"At a time like the present, the relations of the individual to society is the great problem in the mind of thinking men.  Certain American painters, conscious of  these new times and new problems, seek to reflect scenes from ordinary life. . . . They people their streets, their parks, subway cars, department stores and "L" stations with human beings intent on some task or pastime.  To be quite definite, yet aloof, as a recorder of the unthinking crowds of the city of today is the achievement of Edward Laning, whose Fourteenth Street has recently been acquired for the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum."

Lane concluded his article with thoughts about how Laning's work represented a great synthesis of "the city" and its inhabitants:

"The pure 'cityscapists' glorify modern architecture and industry without human figures.  It is pleasant to study an artist, who, though human beings today almost are more dense than dust and almost more discouraging to individualize, does not forget that they are, after all, the stuff of life and that, if properly handled, they can be more significant than any architectural contraptions, no matter how well arranged or abstract."

From November 4 - 22, 1969, the Bernard Danenberg Galleries Inc. in New York City presented an exhibit of Laning's oil paintings, watercolors and drawings titled simply, Edward Laning.  In his foreword to the exhibit catalog, Lawrence Campbell, Editorial Associate, Art News, referenced an earlier exhibit by Laning:

"Edward Laning occupies a special place in modern American painting.  He is a social critic and a propagandist for traditional ways.  He paints morality pictures.  He is the only American muralist to emerge from the 1930's [sic] with the experience and knowledge to handle a large number of figures and landscapes in a convincing fashion. . . . . One senses that he lives at the eye of a hurricane and watches everything being blown to bits around him. . . . In the works peopled by demons, angels and dumpy New Yorkers or Italians, the menace comes not so much from the alarming situations but from the feeling of Fate arching over the spectator. "