Saturday, May 9, 2026

Untitled

Jay van Everen
Untitled
ca. 1920
hand-colored stencil print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC


Oskar Fischinger
Untitled
1942
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Elaine De Kooning
Untitled
ca. 1947
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Herbert Ferber
Untitled
1950
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Beauford Delaney
Untitled
1950
pastel on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Burhan Dogançay
Untitled
1969
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Margaret Ponce Israel
Untitled
ca. 1970
pastel on paper
Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin

Menashe Kadishman
Untitled
1970
screenprint
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Nancy Drosd
Untitled
1971
lithograph
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

León Ferrari
Untitled
1976
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Geoffrey Legge
Untitled
1976
collage and gouache on postcard
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Larry Fink
Untitled
1980
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Elisabeth Kruger
Untitled
1987
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Laura Owens
Untitled
1997
acrylic and modeling paste on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Chris Dorland
Untitled
2006
mixed media on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Michel Delgado
Untitled
2019
oil and enamel on panel
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Ralph Lemon
Untitled
2021
oil and acrylic on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

First Death in Nova Scotia

In the cold, cold parlor
my mother laid out Arthur
beneath the chromographs:
Edward, Prince of Wales,
with Princess Alexandra,
and King George with Queen Mary.
Below them on the table 
stood a stuffed loon
shot and stuffed by Uncle
Arthur, Arthur's father.

Since Uncle Arthur fired
a bullet into him,
he hadn't said a word.
He kept his own counsel
on his white, frozen lake,
the marble-topped table.
His breast was deep and white,
cold and caressable;
his eyes were red glass,
much to be desired.

"Come," said my mother,
"Come and say good-bye
to your little cousin Arthur."
I was lifted up and given
one lily of the valley
to put in Arthur's hand.
Arthur's coffin was
a little frosted cake,
and the red-eyed loon eyed it
from his white, frozen lake.

Arthur was very small.
He was all white, like a doll
that hadn't been painted yet.
Jack Frost had started to paint him
the way he always painted
the Maple Leaf (Forever).
He had just begun on his hair,
a few red strokes, and then
Jack Frost had dropped his brush
and left him white forever.

The gracious royal couples
were warm in red and ermine;
their feet were well wrapped up
in the ladies' ermine trains.
They invited Arthur to be
the smallest page at court.
But how could Arthur go,
clutching his tiny lily,
with his eyes shut up so tight
and the roads deep in snow?

– Elizabeth Bishop (1965)