Monday, August 24, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1966)

Gene Davis
Oriole
1966
acrylic on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Diane Arbus
Agnes Martin, NYC
1966
gelatin silver print
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Frank Auerbach
Seated Figure
1966
screenprint
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Warrington Colescott
Tourist Parties unaware of Hidden Plague
1966
watercolor, gouache, ink and collage on paper
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin

Frank Stella
Wolfeboro III
1966
alkyd paint on canvas
Seattle Art Museum

George Krause
Clown, Philadelphia
1966
gelatin silver print
Dallas Museum of Art

Asger Jorn
Individuum Ineffable
1966
acrylic on paper, mounted on canvas
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Alberto Guzman
Partition en porte à faux
1966
bronze
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Edgardo Miguel Giménez
Las Panteras Objetos
1966
lithograph
(poster for exhibition in Buenos Aires)
Denver Art Museum

Adolph Gottlieb
Chrome Yellow, Green Disk
1966
lithograph
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Andy Warhol
Campbell's Soup Can (Tomato Soup)
1966
screenprint on shopping bag
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Enrico Natali
Protester at Anti-War Rally
1966
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Alex Hay
Guest Check
1966
lacquer on canvas
Weatherspoon Art Museum,
Greensboro, North Carolina

Claes Oldenburg
Proposed Colossal Monument for Thames Estuary: Knee
1966
watercolor and crayon on paper
Menil Collection, Houston

Robert Motherwell
Summertime in Italy (with Lines)
1966
lithograph
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Wes Wilson
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs at the Fillmore, San Francisco
1966
screenprint
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

from Horae Canonicae

                   VI. COMPLINE (part II)

A stride from now will take me into dream,
     Leave me, without a status,
Among its unwashed tribes of wishes
     Who have no dances and no jokes
But a magic cult to propitiate
     What happens from noon till three,
Odd rites which they hide from me – should I chance
     Say, on youths in an oak-wood
Insulting a white deer, bribes nor threats
     Will get them to blab – and then,
Past untruth is one step to nothing,
     For the end, for me as for cities,
Is total absence: what comes to be
     Must go back into non-being
For the sake of equity, the rhythm
     Past measure or comprehending.

Can poets (can men in television)
     Be saved? It is not easy
To believe in unknowable justice
     Or pray in the name of a love
Whose name one's forgotten: libera
     Me, libera C (dear C)
And all poor s-o-b's who never 
     Do anything properly, spare
Us in the youngest day when all are
     Shaken awake, facts are facts,
(And I shall know exactly what happened
     Today between noon and three)
That we, too, may come to the picnic
     With nothing to hide, join the dance
As it moves in perichoresis,
     Turns about the abiding tree.

– W.H. Auden (1954)