Stanton Macdonald-Wright

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Portrait of art critic Willard Huntington Wright
(also wrote mysteries under pseudonym S.S. Van Dine)
1913-14
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Conception Synchromy
1914
oil on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Conception Synchromy
1915
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Oriental Synchromy in Blue-Green
1918
oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Dragon Tale
1930
oil on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Mural for Santa Monica Library
1934-35
oil on panel
(1 of 38 panels composing WPA project)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Self Portrait
ca. 1951
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Self Portrait with Squash
1951
oil on panel
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Liaison Intime: Suite Sommeil #3
1955
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Raigo
1955
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Vers la Cime
1963
oil on panel
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Haiga Portfolio: Basho
1965-66
color woodblock print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Haiga Portfolio: Buson
1965-66
color woodblock print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Haiga Portfolio: Hokushi
1965-66
color woodblock print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Haiga Portfolio: Issa
1965-66
color woodblock print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Annotated Design Sketch
ca. 1970
mixed media on paper
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

The House Fly

Come October, if I close my eyes,

A self till then subliminal takes flight,

Buzzing round me, settling upon the knuckle,

The lip to be explored not as in June

But with a sense verging on micromania

Of wrong, of tiny, hazy, crying wrongs

Which quite undo her – look at the zigzag totter,

Proboscis blindly tapping like a cane.

Gone? If so, only to re-alight

Or else in a stray beam resume the grand toilette

(Eggs of next year's mischief long since laid):

Unwearying strigils taken to the frayed,

Still glinting wings; the dull-red lacquer head

Lifted from its socket, turned mechanically

This way and that, like a wristwatch being wound,

As if there would always be time . . .

Downstairs in this same house one summer night,

Founding the cult, her ancestress alit

On the bare chest of Strato Mouflouzélis

Who stirred in the lamp-glow but did not wake.

To say so brings it back on every autumn 

Feebler wings, and further from that Sun,

That mist-white wafer she and I partake of

Alone this afternoon, making a rite

Distinct from both the blessing and the blight.

– James Merrill (1985)