Charles E. Murphy has emerged in recent years as our premiere interpreter of New York City views, not only because his oils of familiar landmarks have all the resonance of portraits, but also because they are so sublimely painted. Poised between bravura brushwork and pristine control, Murphy's canvases are illuminated as much by the artist's deep and abiding affection for his subjects as by his unfailing way with light on steel and glass and stone. Indeed, his ability to convey subtle emotional qualities through atmospheric means is what imbues his paintings with the unique poetry that sets them apart from the work of others who attempt similar themes.

Particularly poingnant in this regard is "Remembrance," a recent oil on linen in Murphy's newest exhibition of "New York Impressions," at Manhattan Athletic Club, 277 Park Avenue, from February 4 through March 29.

In "Remembrance," the Manhattan skyline is seen from across the river. The sky above it is at once luminous and oddly overcast, with softly shadowed clouds floating over stratospheric streaks of yellow and deep purple. On the right side of the canvas, the stone base and vertical girders of the bridge border the composition like a dark curtain. Beneath it, a large rain puddle is enlivened by evocative reflections. But the piece de resistance of the painting is a single, slender tree beneath the bridge, its delicate leaves wreathing the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, still standing by a miraculous act of memory on the opposite shore.

The Twin Towers rise magically yet again, now in profile, in another oil on linen entitled, "East River at Dusk," where the angle of vision creates the effect of a monolithic monument shaped by sunlight and shadow, set majestically against a vibrant blue sky. With Manhattan Island on the left side of the composition and linked to the water-line by a graceful necklace of bridge-lights, twinkling mutedly as dusk descends over the river, Murphy creates yet another affectingly elegiac image that will linger long in memory. Indeed, for those of us familiar with Murphy's oeuvre, his paintings of the Twin Towers take on extra weight and meaning, mirroring our communal loss through the eyes of an artist whose nuanced intimacy with the city and unique ability to capture its subtle shifts of mood enables him to suggest the psychic toll that the September 11 tragedy has taken on us all.

In Murphy's most recent paintings, the compositions have grown increasingly more daring, as seen in "Brooklyn Reflections II," where a large puddle on the bottom third of the composition dissects and reflects an obscure, somewhat desolate industrial street. Here, with few elements other than some factory buildings, a rusty red dumpster and a more vibrantly red parked car, the artist employs the reflective puddle to create a sense of dislocation, a slightly disconcerting quality that signals a dynamic new departure in Murphy's work.