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| Peter Voulkos Red Edge 1959 oil paint, lacquer and sand on canvas Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami |
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| Remedios Varo El Minotauro 1959 oil on panel NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
-1959-oil-on-canvas-North-Carolina-Museum-of-Art-Raleigh.jpg) |
| Duncan Stuart Untitled (Study in Blue) 1959 oil on canvas North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
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| David Smith Two Circles on Yellow and Green 1959 oil on canvas Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas |
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| Eddy Posthuma de Boer Saturday Night 1959 gelatin silver print Kunstmuseum, The Hague |
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| Irving Penn 8 New York Painters 1959 gelatin silver print Dallas Museum of Art |
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| Louise Nevelson Case with Five Balusters 1959 painted wood Walker Art Center, Minneapolis |
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| Rollie McKenna Alfred Barr, MOMA Sculpture Garden 1959 gelatin silver print Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York |
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| Jasper Johns Thermometer 1959 oil on canvas Seattle Art Museum |
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| Cecil Ray Howard Veranda 1959 wooden assemblage Wichita Art Museum, Kansas |
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| Philippe Halsman Portrait of Edith Sitwell 1959 gelatin silver print Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| Philip Guston Path I 1959 oil on paper, mounted on panel Denver Art Museum |
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| Adolph Gottlieb Cadmium Red above Black 1959 oil on canvas Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas |
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| Willem De Kooning Black and White, Rome 1959 oil paint and paper collage on paper Menil Collection, Houston |
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| Stuart Davis After Study 1959 oil on board Portland Museum of Art, Maine |
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| Gene Charlton Untitled 1959 pigment and collage on panel Menil Collection, Houston |
from Horae Canonicae
II. TERCE
After shaking paws with his dog
(Whose bark would tell the world that he is always kind),
The hangman sets off briskly over the heath;
He does not know yet who will be provided
To do the high works of Justice with:
Gently closing the door of his wife's bedroom
(Today she has one of her headaches),
With a sigh the judge descends his marble stair;
He does not know by what sentence
He will apply on earth the Law that rules the stars:
And the poet, taking a breather
Round his garden before starting his eclogue,
Does not know whose Truth he will tell.
Sprites of hearth and store-room, godlings
Of professional mysteries, the Big Ones
Who can annihilate a city
Cannot be bothered with this moment: we are left,
Each to his secret cult. Now each of us
Prays to an image of his image of himself:
"Let me get though this coming day
Without a dressing down from a superior,
Being worsted in a repartee,
Or behaving like an ass in front of the girls;
Let something exciting happen,
Let me find a lucky coin on a sidewalk,
Let me hear a new funny story."
At this hour we all might be anyone:
It is only our victim who is without a wish,
Who knows already (that is what
We can never forgive. If he knows the answers,
Then why are we here, why is there even dust?),
Knows already that, in fact, our prayers are heard,
That not one of us will slip up,
That the machinery of our world will function
Without a hitch, that today, for once,
There will be no squabbling on Mount Olympus,
No Chthonian mutters of unrest,
But no other miracle, knows that by sundown
We shall have had a good Friday.
– W.H. Auden (1953)