Thursday, July 9, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1923)

Eugène Atget
Le Flegmatique by Mathieu Lespagnandelle
(statue at Versailles)
1923
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Andrew Dasburg
Judson Smith
1923
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Guy Pène Du Bois
Studio, Lafayette Street
1923
oil on canvas
Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia

Marcel Duchamp
Discs Bearing Spirals
1923
drawing
Seattle Art Museum

El Lissitzky
For the Voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky
1923
bookbinding (printed textile)
Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina

El Lissitzky
Untitled
1923
lithograph
Dallas Museum of Art

Naum Gabo
Constructed Head no. 2
1923
rhodoid
(early form of plastic)
Dallas Museum of Art

Hans Gjesme
Life Class
1923
drawing
Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway

Ludwig Hohlwein
Springer & Möller Farbwerke, Leipzig
1923
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Alexander Kanoldt
Cactus Still Life
1923
oil on canvas
Lenbachhaus, Munich

André Lhote
Portrait of Marguerite
1923
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

László Moholy-Nagy
Composition A XI
1923
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Sigismund Righini
Family
1923
colored pencils on paper
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

M. Curt Schmidt
Cab in the Rain
1923
bromide print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Carlos Schwabe
Faun
1923
drawing
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Edward Steichen
Ruth Draper in The Wedding Bells
1923
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

from Shorts II

When gales assault them,
trees are always astonished,
but never ask why. 

          *          *         *

Our tables and chairs and sofas
know things about us
our lovers can't.

          *          *         *

Only bad rhetoric
can improve the world:
to true Speech it is deaf.

          *          *          *

It is the unimportant
who make all the din:
both God and the Accuser
speak very softly.

– W.H. Auden (1969-71)