“Bearden recreates a scene based on a story from the Hebrew Bible in which King Solomon ruled between two women who each claimed to be the mother of a child.”⁣

 Romare Bearden⁣ King Solomon's Judgement⁣ 1978⁣ “Bearden

“Bear Lake is located in an area north of Taos on Taos Pueblo land. It is a sacred site to the Taos Indians, not accessible to the public. This painting was apparently exhibited only once, at An American Place, the gallery Alfred Stieglitz opened in 1929, and the painting remained in her possession. That O’Keeffe considered it a significant work is indicated by the star that she penciled on the backing board.1⁣

The mountain at Bear Lake that dominates the painting is composed parallel to the picture plane and cropped at the sides, decisions that decrease the appearance of deep space while increasing the static dominance of the mountain. The timeless feeling thus achieved is reinforced by O’Keeffe’s decision to lessen the three-dimensionality of the mountain by eliminating smaller geological details and limiting modeling to a few carefully chosen features, such as the irregular folds of mountain walls in the right half of the painting. The startling colors of New Mexico deeply impressed O’Keeffe. Here the rich purple mountainside, accented with gray patches, is seen in shifting half lights.”⁣

 Georgia O’Keeffe⁣ Mountain at Bear Lake - Taos⁣ 1930⁣ “Bear

“This piece was illustrated by Haddon Sundblom for Ladies Home Journal in 1947. ⁣

Sundblom was born in Muskegon, Michigan, to a Swedish-speaking family. His father, Karl Wilhelm Sundblom, came from the farm Norrgårds in the village of Sonnboda in Föglö, Åland Islands, then part of the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland now Finland, and his mother Karin Andersson was from Sweden. Sundblom studied at the American Academy of Art.”⁣

 Haddon Sundblom⁣ The Unpossessed⁣ 1947⁣ “This piece was

In “Self-portrait with Model” by Lovis Corinth, the artist is making a statement about his painting process and the subtle relationship between model and artist. Corinth is showing us a painted model representing the artist, while an artist in the painting is likewise the model. The female nude is facing the canvas as the artist himself would have done to paint it. Her right-hand flat on the “canvas” is touching it as the artist would have done, representing the artist’s own hand painting.

Yet on the left-hand side of this picture, the two are interwound. Corinth was highlighting the complicated relationship between the artist and his subject. The model is Charlotte, who became Corinth’s muse and preferred model, as she was to stay for the rest of his life. They married in 1903; he was 44; she was only 22.

This painting was the couple’s second joint portrait, and the first after their marriage. Charlotte’s pose refers to the classic images of muses by Rubens and Ingres, alluding to the story of Pygmalion.

Self-portrait with Model, 1903 by Lovis Corinth.

 In “Self-portrait with Model” by Lovis Corinth, the artist

“Sakai’s undulating compositions are instantly recognizable as part of his signature aesthetic. What makes his paintings distinct from those of other artists engaging with geometric abstraction is how the fluidity and synthesis of colors that form curvatures and undulations juxtapose the rigidity of the clearly defined bands of color. His work was thereby defined by a dialogue between organic form and precise structure. For Sakai, color harmonies produced a sense of purity by reducing the compositions on the canvas to the rhythms produced from the interactions between different hues.”⁣

🏛 (Inter-American Development Bank)⁣

 Kazuya Sakai⁣ Chromatology II⁣ 1975⁣ “Sakai’s undulating

“One of the most interesting fields within Vytautas Kasiulis’ work are genre pieces depicting interior scenes that have almost no externally evident activity. This means the painter can concentrate on new aesthetic studies and the search for unexpected colour resolutions on the canvas. The artist thinking is one of the most decorative compositions of Vytautas Kasiulis that was created in the 1950s in Paris. The familiar and frequently variated motif takes on a new resonance as the artist has chosen two contrasting blurs of colour that appear to divide the total composition in half. The poster-like openess of the red and faded green expanses, painted in small, vertical strokes, take on the resonance of stained glass.”⁣

🏛 (Lithuanian National Museum of Art)⁣

 Vytautas Kasiulis⁣ The Artist Thinking ⁣ 1950s⁣ “One of the

Rubens Santoro’s oeuvre celebrates Venice’s elegant architecture and magical urban setting. While he is most often recognized for his depictions of the grand facades of the city’s most majestic structures on the Grand Canal, Santoro did turn a more intimate eye on quieter streets and less-traveled waterways.

The present view likely depicts the cupola of Chiesa di San Nicolò da Tolentino, glimpsed from the narrow Fondamenta del Forner on the rio de la Frescada. To the left is the Ca ’Bottacin, built in the fifteenth century by the Dalla Frescada family. The home passed through some of the most well-known Venetian families – the Corners owned the palazzo before it was home to Doge Pietro Loredan between 1567 and 1570 – but is now part of the Ca 'Foscari University of Venice.

Late nineteenth century visitors would also discover this unique atmosphere of faded beauty in The Aspern Papers (1888); written by Henry James, the American author who fell under the city’s spell, this novella takes place in a faded old palazzo filled with mystery. As James described, the palazzo “was a house of the class which in Venice carries even in extreme dilapidation the dignified name…. It was not particularly old, only two or three centuries.” James was captivated by the evocative areas of lesser-known Venice, which inspired him to experiment with new narrative form and style.

Similarly, Santoro uses these overlooked neighborhoods to develop a new visual vocabulary of daily Venetian life: sheets drying in the breeze; subtle earth tones of crumbling building plasters; faded awnings which provide shade to passerbys; humble gondolas that serve as utilitarian transportation, not a touristic fancy. This is the Venice of the Venetians, who live every day amongst the magic of the city—unseen by many, yet sensitively recorded by Santoro’s brush.

Canal Dona Onesta, 19th/20th century by Rubens Santoro.

 Rubens Santoro’s oeuvre celebrates Venice’s elegant

“After her sudden death from an overdose of sleeping pills in August 1962, superstar Marilyn Monroe's life, career, and tragedy became a worldwide obsession. Warhol, being infatuated with fame and pop culture, obtained a black-and-white publicity photo of her (from her 1953 film Niagara) and used the photo to create several series of images. A common idea to all the Marilyn works was that her image was reproduced over and over again as one would find it reprinted in newspapers and magazines at the time. After viewing dozens, or hundreds of such images, a viewer stops seeing a person depicted, but is left with an icon of popular, consumer culture. The image (and the person) become another cereal box on the supermarket shelf, one of hundreds of boxes - which are all exactly the same. ⁣

In Gold Marilyn Monroe, Warhol further plays on the idea iconography, placing Marilyn's face on a very large golden-colored background. The background is reminiscent of Byzantine religious icons that are the central focus in Orthodox faiths to this day. Only instead of a god, we are looking at an image (that becomes a bit garish upon closer inspection) of a woman that rose to fame and died in horrible tragedy. Warhol subtly comments on our society, and its glorification of celebrities to the level of the divine. Here again the Pop artist uses common objects and images to make very pointed insights into the values and surroundings of his contemporaries.”⁣

 Andy Warhol⁣ Gold Marilyn Monroe⁣ 1962⁣ “After her sudden

“"I just paint things I always thought were beautiful, things you use every day and never think about." Warhol's statement epitomizes his ethos; his works put ordinary items front and center. This idea applies to the hand-painted portrait of a Coca-Cola bottle. Another challenge to the domination of Abstract Expressionism, Warhol's Coca-Cola is equal in size to many of the popular canvases of the time (6ft x 5ft) but is devoid of their abstractions. However, there are some other similarities here. As in Barnett Newman's popular Stations of the Cross series of works, Coca-Cola is comprised of a large, black mass on a white background. The bottle jumps out at the viewer; demanding the kind of attention Motherwell's profound canvases received - yet now the sense of irony reigns.”⁣

 Andy Warhol⁣ Coca-Cola ⁣ 1962⁣ “"I just paint things I

“It is one of the most beautiful self-portraits that Frida ever created. It is a passionate expression of her deep love for nature and unending desire to sire children. The portrait shows Khalo nourishing the land by siring a vine, though it does not have any roots as it is rooted in her womb.⁣

Also, the stems of this vine do not have thorns. Rather, they have thirteen leafless stems to depict Kahlo’s losses. Kahlo had lost her father, experienced miscarriages and gone through many operations to repair different areas of her body after the severe accident she went through when she was 19 years. It explains why the vine grows from her womb-less body and moves toward the viewer as if we are the source of hope or light. Frida fixes an impassive gaze on the viewer in a bid to beckon the viewer to confront her predicament.⁣

Most of Frida's self-portraits are an expression of pain, emotional frustration and disappointment. In this painting, she uses an imaginative overtone of symbolism and visionary art to depict her losses, death of loved ones and her inability to sire children. Kahlo criticises her unfortunate state and portrays her sense of guilt in a rather bold way. During this time, Frida had taken to the Surrealist style, though she borrows a few ideas from the traditional Mexican art forms when creating this painting.”⁣

 Frida Kahlo⁣ Roots⁣ 1943⁣ “It is one of the most beautiful

“Botero is best known for painting exaggeratedly voluptuous figures and portraits that can be read as either comical or critical. Working in Paris since the late 1950s but regularly visiting his hometown of Medellín, Colombia, Botero is one of the most widely known artists from Latin America. His portrait La familia presidencial (The Presidential Family) combines all the trademarks of his best works and serves as a critique of civil society and state authority. It depicts the president of Colombia—the male figure in the back of the group to the left—his family, and those with whom he shares state power. The president, his wife, his daughter, and a grandmother can be seen on the left, while a general and a bishop appear on the right. Botero's depiction might be understood as a veiled critique but leaves his ultimate motives ambiguous.”⁣

 Fernando Botero⁣ The Presidential Family⁣ 1967⁣ “Botero is

“Joseph Pickett never ventured far from New Hope, Pennsylvania, a town on the banks of the Delaware River. Working for the local carnival, he traveled through his native Bucks County, yet for most of his life he was a fixture in New Hope, working there as a craftsman and storekeeper. When he came to painting in his later years, his ambition was to depict the history and landscape of the region he knew so well. Curator Holger Cahill encountered Pickett’s work in New Hope, and it was included in such MoMA exhibitions as American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America, 1750–1900 (1932) and Masters of Popular Painting (1938). Pickett’s aesthetic was a natural fit for the Whitney’s founding collection in 1931, since the museum’s first director, Juliana Force, also had roots in Bucks County and a special interest in folk art.⁣

Without formal training, Pickett improvised his materials and technique. He achieved textural effects approximating the objects he depicted by mixing house paint with sand, shell, and other gritty substances. Working slowly, he would spend years on each canvas (only four finished compositions are extant) and build up his surfaces in thick applications of paint. Despite the sculptural outer layer, which sometimes measured nearly a half-inch thick, the world represented by Pickett appears flat for its lack of shading. In works like MoMA’s Manchester Valley (1914–1918?), Pickett recognized the importance of the area as a transportation hub between Philadelphia and New York City, using a steam locomotive to divide two wooded landscapes with different spatial systems.⁣”

 Joseph Pickett⁣ Manchester Valley⁣ 1914-18?⁣ “Joseph

“By the early 1900s Munch had become a recognised artist, especially in Germany, where he had spent much of his time in the 1890s. He also lived there for most of the period from 1902 to 1908.⁣

For Munch personally, these were difficult years, marked by alcoholism, angst and unease. In the years 1904-1907 he painted a number of self-portraits with loneliness as a theme.⁣

Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine was painted in Weimar in 1906. The artist sits at the table, alone with a bottle of wine, a glass and a plate. The hunched figure and the weak folded hands are an expression of utter helplessness.⁣

The figure is placed well into the foreground. The sloping lines create a strong depth perspective in the picture. The head is in the centre, where all the lines meet.⁣

The perspective created by the lines is countered by the use of colours, which creates a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere in the picture. The strong red colour behind the artist’s head creates a movement forward and draws our attention to the head.⁣

Two figures resembling waiters are standing back-to-back in the background. They are pictured as have a shared body, and almost seem top have grown out of Munch’s own body. The two heads, each looking in different directions can be interpreted as metaphors for opposing forces in the artist’s soul. This split into two states of mind can be found in some other Munch pictures.”⁣

 Edvard Munch⁣ Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine⁣ 1906⁣

The World Stage: Africa, Lagos-Dakar (Men Greeting Entry into Lagos)⁣

“Growing up in Los Angeles, California to humble roots, artist Kehinde Wiley witnessed the devastating devaluing of the African-American male in culture and society. Personally having experienced abandonment at a young age by his Nigerian father, Wiley began to notice a crisis of identity and a lack of heroes amongst those in the African-American male community. At the age of twenty, the artist traveled to Africa to meet his father and discover his own heritage, a move that helped to shape his future style.⁣

Influenced by a talent that developed early in life, Wiley went on to study art at Yale University and the San Francisco Art Institute. He now lives in New York. By routinely referencing art history through his work and utilizing a (almost neoclassical) photorealist style of portraiture, Wiley evokes a sense of historical heroism and regality in his subjects who are typically black men. Through his portrayal of urban African-American men in historically powerful poses, Wiley brings to the foreground issues of identity, individual worth, culture, class, and racism.⁣

A beautiful example of the artist’s innovative style can be found in Three Wise Men Greeting Entry into Lagos (Oil on Canvas, 2008). Referencing the Lagos Three Elders statue, Wiley heroically portrays three young men (in traditional African cloth) in a pose of greeting.  The three young men look down on viewers with self-assuredness and confidence. Wiley’s skills, as well as his content are clear.”⁣

 Kehinde Wiley ⁣ The World Stage: Africa, Lagos-Dakar (Men

“As is often the case with this Belgian surrealist, he challenges concepts and assumptions, and everyday objects cannot always be taken at face value.⁣

The viewer is presented with three apparently identical men wearing bowler hats and with clearly defined outfits, placed outdoors in a dusk of indigo and black. Each upright figure has his own crescent moon hanging over him, and they all face different ways.⁣

One looks towards the white glow of the horizon, while the second shows a little of his face as he turns towards the left hand distance, and the third is seen in profile.⁣

The initial impression may be that they are sharing the same space, but they could also be inhabiting separate worlds, although it is impossible for the eye to discern where one person's sky becomes another's.⁣

The figures present no personalities - they could all be the same or have none at all. It is the suggestion of being both part of the same world, and yet also apart from it, that makes it vaguely disquieting and connects it with preoccupations of alienation, loneliness and isolation today.⁣

Stiff bowler-hatted gents occur throughout Magritte's work, with the first being The Musings of a Solitary Walker in 1926. They have the effect of showing personalities that cannot be identified or made individual, and so appear to be identical.⁣

Magritte, who was himself often photographed wearing bowler hats, is arguably the most important 20th-century Belgian artist. Initially influenced by the Italian artist De Chirico, he played with notions of reality that turned his creations into riddles.⁣

Perhaps recalling his time in advertising, figures were dressed as anonymous businessmen. Although he was well known, fully international recognition didn't come until 1948, when he signed up with a New York dealer. He died in 1967, shortly after a major retrospective opened in that city's Museum of Modern Art.”⁣

 Rene Magritte⁣ The Mysteries of the Horizon⁣ 1955⁣ “As is

“An influential artist based in Chicago, Gertrude Abercrombie was largely self taught. She established her mature style, a haunting synthesis of American folk-art, surrealism, and sixteenth-century Flemish painting, by 1940. This enigmatic little painting includes many aspects of Abercrombie’s best narrative work of the 1940s and 1950s. Abercrombie has included herself in a spooky nocturnal landscape that was likely composed from a synthesis of memory and the imagination. She loved to invent mysterious and magical settings in which a few symbolically-charged objects or details interact in a provocative way. In a statement written for a 1945 exhibition catalogue, Abercrombie described this process. “I am not interested in complicated things nor in the commonplace,” she wrote. “I like and like to paint simple things that are a little strange. My work comes directly from my inner consciousness and it must come easily. It is a process of selection and reduction.”⁣

Many of her compositions feature a lone woman, often depicted with attributes of sorcery (an owl, or a broomstick). She painted many variations of her favored subjects (sparsely furnished interiors, self-portraits and still-lifes). She considered herself ugly, and sometimes she wore a pointed velvet hat to accentuate her witch-like appearance. You can see her works at the Illinois State Museum, Springfield.”⁣

 Gertrude Abercrombie ⁣ Girl Searching⁣ 1945⁣ “An

“In his Chadds Ford studio, Wyeth decided to paint Island Funeral in egg tempera on a gesso panel. Part of the process involved texturing the surface of the gesso, which Wyeth did with a sharp point, such as a stylus or the end of a brush. In some areas, the gouged lines enhance the painted image; in other areas, the gouged lines are more randomly applied. The overall surface texture energizes the image and adds visual interest.⁣

One of the most striking features of the painting is the intensity of the blues and greens Wyeth used. These colors were the result of an informal collaboration between the artist and the DuPont Company. Chemists employed at the company's Jackson Laboratory provided Wyeth with pigments made from "Monastral Fast Blue B" and "Monastral Fast Green G," two vibrant, light fast dyes that had been recently developed at DuPont.”⁣

 N. C. Wyeth⁣ Island Funeral⁣ 1939⁣ “In his Chadds Ford

“Kusama’s regular use of polka dots has made her name synonymous with this motif. They begin to appear in her earliest compositions, including Accumulation, an ink-on-paperboard field of black polka dots in empty space. This drawing is among the thousands of paintings and drawings on paper she began producing in 1951 in Japan. Though the scale of these compositions is intimate, for the artist they evoke a sense of vastness. She once described them as reflecting “the great depth of my inner heart.” Like much of her work to come, Accumulation is based on repetition—or as its title suggests, on the accumulation of her repeating marks—and stems largely from the aural and visual hallucinations Kusama had been experiencing since she was 10 years old. “I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings,” she once explained.”⁣

 Yayoi Kusama⁣ Accumulation⁣ 1952⁣ “Kusama’s regular use of

“Gustave Van de Woestijne was a Belgian expressionist painter.⁣

He belonged to the so-called "First Group of Latem", a group of artists who worked in the rural village of Sint-Martens-Latem on the banks of the Lys, near Ghent. He was the brother of the Flemish poet Karel Van de Woestijne. He was buried in the Cemetery of Campo Santo.”⁣

 Gustave Van de Woestyne⁣ The Bad Sower⁣ 1908⁣ “Gustave Van

“In the summer of 1966, while still working on his Brushstrokes, Lichtenstein designed a poster for New York City's Lincoln Center, taking as his subject the architecture and design of the 1920s–30s. This initiated a series that parodied the style of Art Deco, which Lichtenstein ironically described as "Cubism for the Home." Like the Landscapes paintings that preceded them, the artist's Modern works are among the relatively rare pieces in his oeuvre without an anchoring reference to a specific artist or object. They are inventions based on one of his favored notions: impure style. Here he humorously stylized an already-stylized style.⁣

While attempting to summon the style of the period, Lichtenstein's foremost aims were, as always, form and composition. The Modern series strikes an extraordinary balance between verticals and diagonals, curves and straight edges, dynamic and static forms. In Modern Painting with Bolt (1967), the lightning strike both divides and unifies, becoming an Art Deco equivalent of a comic-book explosion. Works like Modern Painting Triptych (1967) explore a modular format of panels in various arrangements with the same image repeated sequentially on all panels, begging the semantic issue of whether the works represent one painting or multiple paintings.”⁣

 Roy Lichtenstein⁣ Modern Painting with Bolt⁣ 1967⁣ “In the

“The official State of Oklahoma license plate depicts Houser’s Sacred Rain Arrow, one of his most iconic works. The piece was inspired by the pro-civil rights gesture made by African American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. There, they raised black-gloved fists during the singing of the American national anthem, an action assumed by many to be a Black Power salute. Houser’s original version of the sculpture, carved in ebony, showed a clenched fist, lifted into the air and bearing a truncated bow — a symbol of power, strength, and solidarity with Native struggles. A more detailed bronze of Sacred Rain Arrow, made much later, was a featured work at Salt Lake City’s Olympic Village for the 2002 Winter Games it hosted.”⁣

 Allan Houser⁣ Sacred Rain Arrow⁣ 1988⁣ “The official State

“Sebastià Junyent i Sans was born in Barcelona in 1865. He was the son of an manufacturer from the carrer del Rec that each year organised the carnival of the Born with the cultural society Societat del Born.⁣

Sebastià Junyent was one of the representatives of the first generation of modernist painters and led the Association of Catalan Painters and Sculptors of 1904, that grouped together the names of major post modernist artists —Mir, Nonell, Picasso, Junyer i Vidal, Gargallo, Fontbona, Nogués, Pidelaserra, Ysern, and the Oslé brothers, amongst others.⁣

Junyent was friend and protector of the young Picasso, showing special esteem for him during his stay in Barcelona, but his relationship also continued when Picasso had settled in Paris.  In 1903 Junyent helped him with the debts of his studio in Barcelona and subsequently he lent him a studio that he had in carrer Bonavista. He was also responsible for the fact that the magazine Joventut (with which he collaborated) published some of Picasso’s drawings during 1904 and 1905.⁣

Currently, the Portrait of Sebastià Junyent is conserved in the Museu Picasso.”⁣

 Pablo Picasso⁣ Portrait of Sebastià Junyent Sans⁣ 1904⁣

Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London⁣

“Monet’s London paintings are not so much views of the city through a veil of atmosphere as views of the veil itself, an “envelope” that is infinitely sensitive to changes of weather and light. To convey this, Monet painted the same subject repeatedly under different light and weather conditions. This work was one of 37 exhibited from Monet’s Views of the Thames series in 1904 at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris, a critical success for Monet. The series had three subjects: Waterloo Bridge, Charing Cross Bridge, and the Houses of Parliament. It defies the typical impressionist practice of painting outside directly from the subject. His last London trip to paint the Thames was in 1901. Monet completed numerous canvases over the course of three years in his Giverny studio in France, rather than in London.”⁣

 Claude Monet⁣ Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London⁣

The Tilled Field (La terre labourée)⁣⁣

“During the summer of 1923 Joan Miró began painting The Tilled Field, a view of his family’s farm in Montroig, Catalonia. Although thematically related to his earlier quasi-realistic, Fauvist-colored rural views, such as Prades, The Village, this painting is the first example of Miró’s Surrealist vision. Its fanciful juxtaposition of human, animal, and vegetal forms and its array of schematized creatures constitute a realm visible only to the mind’s eye, and reveal the great range of Miró’s imagination. While working on the painting he wrote, “I have managed to escape into the absolute of nature.” The Tilled Field is thus a poetic metaphor that expresses Miró’s idyllic conception of his homeland, where, he said, he could not “conceive of the wrongdoings of mankind.”⁣⁣

The complex iconography of The Tilled Field has myriad sources, and attests to Miró’s long-standing interest in his artistic heritage. The muted, contrasting tones of the painting recall the colors of Catalan Romanesque frescoes, while the overt flatness of the painting—space is suggested by three horizontal bands indicating sky, sea, and earth—and the decorative scattering of multicolored animals throughout were most likely inspired by medieval Spanish tapestries. These lively creatures are themselves derived from Catalan ceramics, which Miró collected and kept in his studio. The stylized figure with a plow has its source in the prehistoric cave paintings of Altamira, which Miró knew well. Even the enormous eye peering through the foliage of the pine tree, and the eye-covered pine cone beneath it, can be traced to examples of early Christian art, in which the wings of angels were bedecked with many tiny eyes. Miró found something alive and magical in all things: the gigantic ear affixed to the trunk of the tree, for example, reflects his belief that every object contains a living soul.”⁣⁣

 Joan Miró⁣⁣ The Tilled Field (La terre labourée)⁣⁣ 1924⁣⁣

“Prometheus, painted in 1919 and published the following year, visually translates a mythical tale of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from the Olympian gods and presented it to early man, thus allowing for the evolution of civilization and cultural progress. As a result of this act, Prometheus became the patron of all earthly artists and thinkers as he brought enlightenment to the world. Parrish emphasizes this heroic interpretation in the present work by depicting the subject in clear mythological glory. Bathed in a warm golden light, Prometheus is rendered in the classical Greek style, idealized and youthful, returning triumphantly to earth bearing the flame of the gods.⁣⁣

The preternatural landscape rendered behind the figure was likely conjured by Parrish’s fertile imagination; he created these make-believe “Parrishscapes” by synthesizing both real and imagined natural elements. Behind the protagonist, a distant view reveals a mysterious mountainous landscape. The artist’s dazzling gifts as a colorist reveal themselves as the dramatic moonlight beams down upon the crystal calm lake and the craggy outcroppings that surround it. The velvety, midnight blue was reportedly inspired by the effects of light filtering through the cloud layer that Parrish felt was specific to New England: “There is an intense blue in New England,” he once wrote. “Put a mountain here, against the east, in a clear sunset glow, and it would be more startling than in Arizona” (quoted in Alma Gilbert, The Masterworks, Berkeley, California, 1992, p. 103). The present work exhibits a remarkable luminosity and purity of colors that Parrish attained by painting with layers of transparent colored glazes, now considered a hallmark of his distinctive style. Displaying lush color effects and an extraordinary attention to detail, Prometheus impressively demonstrates the unique style and vivid imagination that has earned Parrish his place among the most celebrated and beloved of American illustrators.”⁣⁣

 Maxfield Parrish⁣⁣ Prometheus⁣⁣ 1919⁣⁣ “Prometheus, painted

“Miró painted this towering canvas in summer or fall of 1925 at his family’s farm in Montroig, a small village nestled between the mountains and coast of his native Catalonia. He was buoyed by the success of his recent exhibition in Paris, where he had been feted by many of the young poets and painters associated with the Surrealist movement. Their signatures emblazoned his exhibition’s invitation, claiming Miró as one of their own. The question after he returned to Spain was what he would do next. The Birth of the World is one of his answers.⁣

With this work, Miró went, to quote a favorite Surrealist dictum, “beyond painting,” with “painting” understood to be his own past work and Western artistic tradition. He jettisoned the rules of perspective that painters had used since the Renaissance to construct illusionistic pictorial space, and instead he covered the ground of his vast canvas with an astonishing variety of abstract painterly incidents: spatters, smears, stains, drips, cascades, bursts, smudges, explosions, spurts, and diaphanous washes vie for attention with a series of minimal motifs that are as much drawn as painted. The result was a new and radically unconstrained form of painting that Miró would later describe as “a sort of genesis,” and that his Surrealist poet friends titled The Birth of the World.”⁣

 Joan Miró⁣ The Birth of the World⁣ Montroig, late

“Indigenous vendors with oversized bundles of lilies are part of a recurring theme in Diego Rivera's work. His first such painting, Dia de Flores dates to 1925. He continued his flower vendor series through the 1940s. One of his best-known renditions is Vendedora de Flores, or The Flower Vendor, from 1942. Rivera's works appear simple at first glance, but The Flower Vendor is rife with symbolism.⁣

One of the striking similarities among Rivera's flower seller paintings is the anonymity of the human figures. In the 1942 work, the figure is facing forward, yet she bows her head and closes her eyes. It looks like she is steeling herself to shoulder a heavy burden. The huge bundle of oversized lilies dwarfs her human figure.⁣

The light-hued lilies contrast with the darker tones in the scenes of flower vendors. Rivera paints his lilies white, greenish-white or bright yellow. Both the size and brightness of the flowers overpower the human figures. In one sense, the domination of the flowers represents the domination of the upper classes over the poorest classes. The vendors bow down to and serve those with the money to buy such luxury items.⁣

In another sense, the lilies symbolize death. They are a common funeral flower. As such, Rivera may be juxtaposing the blossoming of the present with the dying traditions of the past.⁣

Unlike most of his other works in the series, Rivera's Vendedora de Flores of 1942 shows two figures rather than one. In the foreground, the vendor prepares to shoulder the large basket of lilies. In the background, a partially concealed figure grasps the basket, ready to help her lift it up.”⁣

 Diego Rivera ⁣ Flower Vendor (Vendedora de Flores)⁣ 1942⁣

“Sharecropper reveals Elizabeth Catlett’s lifelong concern for the oppressed and the dignity of women. The print focuses on a female farm worker whose face, made rough and leathery by years of toil, is nonetheless determined and commanding.⁣

After the Civil War, many former slaves became sharecroppers, or farmers who worked on rented land and received an agreed share of the crop as payment. This economic system trapped many of these African Americans, as well as white workers, in a cycle of poverty. Set in the 1950s, Catlett’s Sharecropper refers to the injustices that this unfair system exerted on the poor. ⁣

Emphasizing the triumph of the worker over her harsh conditions, Catlett represented this poor, anonymous figure with the strength, dignity, and heroism generally reserved for individuals of power.”⁣

 Elizabeth Catlett ⁣ Sharecropper ⁣ 1952⁣ “Sharecropper

“When many American artists were turning toward abstraction, Andrew Wyeth remained a realist, producing precise, evocative paintings of the places he knew best. Winter Fields depicts a dead, frozen crow Wyeth found near his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. He took the bird into his studio, sketched it, and then painted it in exquisite detail from a worm’s-eye view, which magnifies the bird relative to its surroundings and thereby suggests the wider significance of its death. Completed during World War II, Winter Fields recalls similarly unflinching photographs of corpses lying on battlefields. Yet Wyeth resented comparisons of his work to photography and said he despised cameras. In fact, despite its apparent precision, Winter Fields subtly distorts reality. The distant trees are as sharply focused as the crow in the foreground—an impossibility for both the human eye and the camera lens. This visual effect compresses the pictorial space toward the surface, and is accentuated by the lacelike, overlapping blades of grass, which create a delicate surface pattern.”⁣

 Andrew Wyeth⁣ Winter Fields ⁣ 1942⁣ “When many American

“Margaret Winifred Tarrant (19 August 1888 – 29 July 1959) was an English illustrator, and children's author, specializing in depictions of fairy-like children and religious subjects. She began her career at the age of 20, and painted and published into the early 1950s. She was known for her children's books, postcards, calendars, and print reproductions.⁣

In the 1920s, Tarrant helped to popularize fairies in a long-running series of titles on the theme such as The Forest Fairies, The Pond Fairies, and The Twilight Fairies. She was long associated with the Medici Society and many of her postcards, calendars, and children's books were published by the organization. Following the death of both her parents in 1934, the Society sent her on a trip to Palestine to research material. During World War II, she donated posters to the war effort, and rode an old bike to conserve petrol.”⁣

 Margaret Tarrant⁣ Twilight Procession ⁣ 1920s⁣ “Margaret

“As an artist, Julian Martínez from San Ildefonso Pueblo is best known for the ceramics he made with his wife, Maria Martínez. Together, they produced the matte-black on polished-black pottery for which they and their Pueblo colleagues gained international fame.⁣

Maria formed the pots into elegant shapes and Julian painted the designs, both geometric and figurative, including historic motifs such as the feather pattern from Mimbres pottery and the avanyu, the horned serpent similar the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl.”⁣

 Maria and Julian Martínez⁣ pot with avanyu design⁣ 1934-43⁣

“In 1913 Klimt broke with his annual three-month visit to Attersee spa in the Austrian Alps, and went to the Italian Lake Garda instead, possibly under the increasing influence of Egon Schiele, who preferred to travel abroad. Whether as a result of the change of light or scenery, this work amply demonstrates its superb effect on him. As in Austria, Klimt paints the scene from a boat out on the water, yet the dramatic distinction of this landscape is the transformed handling of subject-matter, panorama, lighting, and form. It is a wonderful light, expansive work unlike the usual claustrophobic style of his typically intense Austrian scenes. The atmosphere is of life and frivolity rather than the somber, emotionally charged visions of home. ⁣

Some critics point to Cubism as the agent of change. Klimt came into contact with the movement during recent trips to Paris where works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were on display. Schiele's own landscapes during this period certainly explore a more Cubist approach and both artists probably discussed the dynamic implications of this new formal esthetic. But in Klimt's case, comparison with Cubism is stretching a point. Here its influence was only experimental and conducted in a casual, limited fashion. Sadly, this singular work was also destroyed in the Schloss Immendorf fire.”⁣