Curator

  • Art Institute Chicago
  • Harvard art museum
  • My Exhibition
A graphic, grotesque painting of a balding, bug-eyed man with white hair and decaying flesh and open boils in dominant shades of gray and magenta, his clothing tattered and torn. Behind him, a crumbling home is suggested through objects and voids of space rendered in swirls of prismatic colors like those reflected by an oil slick: dark purples, greens, blues.

Picture of Dorian Gray, 1943–44

Ivan Albright

Scene in a diner, viewed through wrap-around glass windows, at night on an empty urban street. A light-skinned man and woman, he in a suit and she in a red dress, sit together at a triangular wood bar, eyes downcast. At left sits another man, his back to the viewer. Behind the counter is a light-skinned man in a white uniform. The interior lights cast a yellow glow that spills onto the street in pale green. Above the diner a sign reads, "Phillies."

Nighthawks, 1942

Edward Hopper

A sizable pile of hard candies in blue, red, and yellow wrappers piled up against a white wall and resting on a light-colored wood floor.

"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Abstract painting in predominant shades of blue, green, and black, featuring diagonal bands of color and undulating lines.

Blue and Green Music, 1919–21

Georgia O'Keeffe

A chaotic but happy kitchen scene: A light-skinned woman in a pink dress at left bends to take a turkey out of the oven, while another at right forms a pie near a small girl playing with a kitten. Behind them, a woman selects dishware as yet another carries a basket of ingredients. A fifth woman in the back puts on a fancy hat and coat near a pair of babies reaching out from their twin high chair.

Thanksgiving, c. 1935

Doris Lee

Horizontal five-panel document featuring written characters in black on the left four pages and an illustration of the fifth. A seated figure at left in profile, wearing a tall headdress and white clothing, looks toward a dark-haired female figure at right in white with a white object on her head. She holds up her hands in gesture. A panel of hieroglyphs in white squares is visible behind them.

Funerary Papyrus of Tayu-henut-Mut, Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21 (about 1069-945 BCE)

Ancient Egyptian

Horizontal painting in pastel tones of a series of abstract clouds in a gridlike formation like loose bricks, larger at the bottom of the painting and receding away at a horizon line near the top of the painting. Behind them, a blue sky gets progressively lighter. At the horizon line is a loose pink gradient that progresses to white and returns to blue at the very top of the work.

Sky above Clouds IV, 1965

Georgia O'Keeffe

The outer hard case of an Egyptian mummy is painted with a gold face, a blue geometric wig, a colorful bird across the chest, and various scenes across the lower portion featuring figures of gods and goddesses.

Coffin and Mummy of Pa-ankh-en-Amun, Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 22, reign of Osorkon I (about 924–889 BCE)

Ancient Egyptian

A close-up view of five hickory leaves in vivid yellow, a white daisy in the lower middle portion, on a white background.

Yellow Hickory Leaves with Daisy, 1928

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painting of two red-and-orange flowers in the bottom half of the frame and beyond them, in the top half, reddish-brown hills.

Red Hills with Flowers, 1937

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painting of a bone-white cow's skull directly centered in a vertical canvas, adorned with gray-white roses. The background behind the skull is similarly pale and appears to depict stone, a deep black gap between sheets of stone bisecting the painting from top to bottom.

Cow's Skull with Calico Roses, 1931

Georgia O'Keeffe

A work made of tempera on board.

The Cloisters, 1949

Andrew Wyeth

A work made of oil on canvas.

A Face from Georgia, 1970–74

Ivan Albright

Abstract painting of bright rectangles in various sizes, in shades of light and dark orange as well as yellow, blue, lime green, and pink. A small white, amorphous shape sits at top center.

The Golden Wall, 1961

Hans Hofmann

Tall city buildings seen at close range from the water, illuminated by hundreds of lighted windows and suffused with a dreamy light-blue and gray haze. Boats below emit blue steam.

Afterglow, c. 1913

Jonas Lie

Painting of an Indigenous woman native to Mexico bent and seated on a brown floor, using red thread to create a geometric design on a backstrap loom. Earth tones dominate, while a dresser in the background and the bottom portion of the woman's white dress are a deep blue.

Weaving, 1936

Diego Rivera

A work made of lithograph poster on tan wove paper, laid down on fabric.

L'Artisan Moderne, 1896

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Painting of a woman and an older white man holding a pitchfork, both seen from the waist up. They stand side by side with stern expressions, in front of a white house with a peaked roof.

American Gothic, 1930

Grant Wood

A work made of oil on canvas.

Ballet Skirt or Electric Light (from the White Rose Motif), 1927

Georgia O'Keeffe

A work made of oil on canvas.

A Boy Named Alligator, 1930

Kathleen Blackshear

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