Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1928)

Edward Steichen
Greta Garbo and John Gilbert
1928
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Georgia O'Keeffe
Three Eggs in Pink Dish
1928
oil on canvas
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe

John Carl Ely
McGee's Shop
1928
etching
Seattle Art Museum

Maurice Henry
Undersea Painting
1928
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Pierre Bonnard
Flowers against Red Carpet
1928
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Joaquín Torres-García
Café Riche, Paris
1928
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Rockwell Kent
Flame
1928
wood-engraving
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Robert Henri
Annie Lavelle
1928
oil on canvas
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, 
South Hadley, Massachusetts

Otto Dix
Portrait of Martha Dix
1928
mixed media on panel
Museum Folkwang, Essen

George Luks
Mike the Bite
1928
oil on canvas
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Jean Souverbie
Thetis and Jupiter
1928
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Gustave de Smet
Backstage
1928
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Ludwig Hohlwein
Wear Jewelry
1928
offset print (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Berenice Abbott
Portrait of modernist publisher Jane Heap
1928
gelatin silver print
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Franz Radziwill
Wilhelmshaven
1928
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Karl Hugo Schmölz
Radio Director Ernst Hardt in Cologne Studio
1928
gelatin silver print
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Heard and Seen

Events reported by the ear
Are soft or loud, not far or near,
In what is heard we only sense
Transition and impermanence:
A bark, a laugh, a rifle-shot,
These may concern us or may not.

What-has-been and what-is-to-be
To vision form a unity:
The seen hill stays the way it is,
But forecasts greater distances,
And we acknowledge with delight
A so-on after every sight.

– W.H. Auden (1969)