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| Robert Melee Her Curtains 2002 painted wood and plaster Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Barry Dalgleish Interior with Still Life, New Year's Day 1981 oil and acrylic on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| George Murphy At the Back of the Atheneum I 1980 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Ivan Chermayeff American Museum of Immigration 1974 offset-lithograph (poster) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Henry Peterson Poster of a Pole ca. 1972 screenprint National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Ilya Bolotowsky Diamond - Blue, Black, Red, White 1971 acrylic on linen Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Richard Anuszkiewicz Greeting Card 1971 screenprint Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Gene Davis Zebra 1969 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| John Opper Blue and Yellow Verticals ca. 1968-70 acrylic on canvas Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas |
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| Claes Oldenburg Scissors Obelisk 1968 lithograph Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Guido Molinari Oppositions 1961 acrylic on canvas Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Alice Trumbull Mason Suspension Points (Surface Winds) 1959 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Josef Hoffmann Design for Textile ca. 1950-55 gouache on paper Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous French Designer Morning Glory ca. 1930 block-printed wallpaper Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Wiener Werkstätte Regenbogen 1919 block-printed silk Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Emily Carr Indian Totem Pole Hazelton, British Columbia 1912 oil on board Art Gallery, New South Wales, Sydney |
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| Antonio Beato Egyptian Temple ca. 1870-80 albumen silver print Art Institute of Chicago |
from The Imaginary Iceberg
We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship,
although it meant the end of travel.
Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock
and all the sea were moving marble.
We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship;
we'd rather own this breathing plain of snow
though the ship's sails were laid upon the sea
as the snow lies undissolved upon the water.
O solemn, floating field,
are you aware an iceberg takes repose
with you, and when it wakes may pasture on your snows?
* * *
This iceberg cuts its facets from within.
Like jewelry from a grave
it saves itself perpetually and adorns
only itself, perhaps the snows
which so surprise us lying on the sea.
Good-bye, we say, good-bye, the ship steers off
where waves give in to one another's waves
and clouds run in a warmer sky.
Icebergs behoove the soul
(both being self-made from elements least visible)
to see them so: fleshed, fair, erected indivisible.
– Elizabeth Bishop (1946)