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This rare early painting by Stuart Davis was made in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the artist began spending summers in 1915. Probably painted during his second visit, the work reflects the profound impact that the 1913 Armory Show in New York City had on Davis; the exhibition introduced him to the principles of abstraction being pioneered by artists in France and Germany. Here, the thickly painted white crescents generalize the upturned hulls of fishing boats.

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Poster for an upcoming essay showing a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi.

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This painting by the American artist George Caleb Bingham is captivating to see in person. The atmosphere glows and the uncluttered composition exudes calm. Bingham was primarily a portrait painter when he decided to produce this masterpiece in the Luminist style. His original title for this work was: “French Trader and Half-Breed Son”. Aside from that rather offensive title, the painting is an idealized look at the vital fur trade that brought many Frenchmen to North America. By the 1840s, when this work was made, the fur trade was fading and was mostly conducted by large trading companies (such as the Hudson Bay Company) but the fur trade to Europe was originally overwhelmingly French, starting in the 17th century. France sent men (and only a few women) to the New World to supply furs for popular European fashions (especially beaver fur for hats). These early traders frequently married indigenous women, which enabled important trade relationships among the Native American communities and produced many offspring. Bingham’s bucolic scene was therefore also nostalgic. And that animal in the front of the boat? It looks a bit like a black cat but apparently it is a tethered baby black bear. In reality, fur traders lived lives of rough hardships but perhaps they also experienced random moments of peaceful drifting on the Missouri, too.

Oil painting by Andreas Andersen showing a nude blond man reclining in bed while a dark-haired man dresses at the bedside, with a ribboned black and white cat below, set in a sunlit Florence interior.

Watercolour painting of three couples dancing in blue sailor uniforms, rendered in soft, overlapping washes against an abstract cream and grey background, with a black-and-white checkered floor in the lower left corner. Signed "C. Demuth, 1917."

"Rock of Ages" is a portrait of Shamsud-Din’s father, Isaac Edward Allen, Sr., at the age of 76. Shamsud-Din describes his father as “a master farmer, a magician with soils, raising bountiful crops in 1947 without motorized equipment, with horses and mules in the backwoods of Queen City, in northeast Texas… We were self-sustaining and independent.” In 1947, a mob of white men beat and nearly killed Allen. When Allen recovered, he traveled north to settle in Vanport City, Oregon, where his wife, Geneva Jenkins, and their 10 children joined him. One year later, the family lost everything in the Vanport Flood and moved to Portland. Allen became a landscaper and the young Shamsud-Din frequently accompanied him to work. In his later years, Allen moved to San Bernardino, California, where he is depicted in this painting, surrounded by his own lush garden, the fruits of his labor.

Allen’s thick-veined, hard-working hands appear at the foreground of the painting. His eyes are softly set, yet gaze directly at the viewer. To his right, at eye level, a small mirror is adhered to the painting. For Shamsud-Din, the mirror is a gesture and invitation to share and exchange the gaze of his father. Gold leaf frames the painting which in every way honors the man who, Shamsud-Din writes, “was the first to encourage and support my growth and development as an artist.”