Strange Worlds

Todros Geller reflected on the complex blending of immigrant traditions and modern culture that characterized early 20th-century Chicago—what he termed the collision of many “strange worlds.” Focusing on Jewish themes and subject matter in his work, here Geller depicted a man in somber garb staring guardedly out at the viewer from beneath the diagonal steel stairway of a Chicago “L” station. Behind him, pedestrians and vehicles stream past, rendered by the artist in a swirling, modernist array of circles and fractured planes. The figure’s immobile posture and his isolation from the frenetic activity suggest his resistance to—and perseverance amid—a changing world.