The first time I saw the building of the New York World's Fair I was struck by the atmosphere and grandeur of the construction animated by the men at work in the midst of steel scaffolding and flying sparks, guiding the most varied machinery which pounded and devoured the earth - planting poles, opening roads - creating a seething atmosphere of work on a scale I had never seen before.

I started to draw these instants which past before me and to try to capture the enveloping changing light of day and weather - grey passages of rain, burning sunsets, blinding snow, crystalline mornings - that set the key to the moods which accompanied me over the plains of Flushing Meadows.

LUCIANO GUARNIERI

LUCIANO GUARNIERI'S paintings and drawings of the construction at the New York World's Fair entitled "Men at Work" is one of the finest things I have seen in a long time: the treatment is most original and unusual and I believe that many visitors will be delighted to have such a memento to take home and keep permanently.

ROBERT MOSES

It is not the intention of this book to record the entire, magnificent construction of the New York World's Fair. The selection of the drawings and the plates was carried out on the basis of the material that the artist Luciano Guarnieri had already selected according to the response which the various aspects of the birth of this great enterprise had had upon his artistic sensibility.

I consider it a great privilege for my Publishing House to have brought out this "Official Art Book" and I hope it will remain as a living artistic record of this exceptional event.

ALESSANDRO OLSCHKI