-by-Joyce-&-Co.-(Dutch-arts-collective)-c1974-offset-print-(poster)-Allard-Pierson-Museum-Amsterdam.jpg) |
| Joyce & Co. (Dutch arts collective) Erwin (a novel) 1974 offset print (poster) Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam |
 |
| Billy Al Bengston Punta Tintorera Dracula 1974 acrylic on canvas Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California |
 |
| Joan Brown Lamp on Table 1974 enamel on canvas Seattle Art Museum |
 |
| John Cole Still Life in Yellow 1974 oil on canvas Tacoma Art Museum, Washington State |
 |
| Gene Davis Untitled 1974 screenprint Dallas Museum of Art |
 |
| Terry Evans Family with Tractor 1974 gelatin silver print Wichita Art Museum, Kansas |
 |
| Walker Evans Going Out of Business IV 1974 dye diffusion transfer print Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Leonard Freed Farmer collecting Water from a Spring, Gangi, Sicily 1974 gelatin silver print Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York |
 |
| Jane Freilicher One Cat, Two Fish 1974 oil on linen Portland Museum of Art, Maine |
 |
| Mark Goodman Donald York, Jr. standing beside his Father's Wrecker Millerton, New York 1974 gelatin silver print Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York |
 |
| Grace Hartigan The Far-Away Places 1974 oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas |
 |
| Paul Jenkins Phenomenon Jenkins-Land 1974 watercolor on paper NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Jasper Johns Torso 1974 lithograph North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
 |
| Alex Katz Young Washington 1974 lithograph Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee |
 |
| Karl Korab Untitled 1974 lithograph San Jose Museum of Art, California |
-Four-Figures-Against-Blue-1974-watercolor-crayon-and-ink-on-paper-NSU-Art-Museum-Fort-Lauderdale-Florida.jpg) |
| Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk) Four Figures against Blue 1974 watercolor, crayon and ink on paper NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
The Managers
In the bad old days it was not so bad:
The top of the ladder
Was an amusing place to sit; success
Meant quite a lot – leisure
And huge meals, more palaces filled with more
Objects, books, girls, horses
Than one would ever get round to, and to be
Carried uphill while seeing
Others walk. To rule was a pleasure when
One wrote a death-sentence
On the back of the Ace of Spades and played on
With a new deck. Honors
Are not so physical or jolly now,
For the species of Powers
We are used to are not like that. Could one of them
Be said to resemble
The Tragic Hero, the Platonic Saint,
Or would any painter
Portray one rising triumphant from a lake
On a dolphin, naked,
Protected by an umbrella of cherubs? Can
They so much as manage
To behave like genuine Caesars when alone
Or drinking with cronies,
To let their hair down and be frank about
The world? It is doubtful.
The last word on how we may live or die
Rests today with such quiet
Men, working too hard in rooms that are too big,
Reducing to figures
What is the matter, what is to be done.
A neat little luncheon
Of sandwiches is brought to each on a tray,
Nourishment they are able
To take with one hand without looking up
From papers a couple
Of secretaries are needed to file,
From problems no smiling
Can dismiss. The typewriters never stop
But whirr like grasshoppers
In the silent siesta heat as, frivolous
Across their discussions,
From woods unaltered by our wars and our vows,
There drift the scents of flowers
And the songs of birds who will never vote
Or bother to notice
Those distinguishing marks a lover sees
By instinct and policemen
Can be trained to observe. Far into the night
Their windows burn brightly
And, behind their backs bent over some report,
On every quarter,
For ever like a god or a disease
There on the earth the reason
In all its aspects why they are tired, the weak,
The inattentive, seeking
Someone to blame. If, to recuperate
They go a-playing, their greatness
Encounters the bow of the chef or the glance
Of the ballet-dancer
Who cannot be ruined by any master's fall.
To rule must be a calling,
It seems, like surgery or sculpture, the fun
Neither love nor money
But taking necessary risks, the test
Of one's skill, the questions,
If difficult, their own reward. But then
Perhaps one should mention
Also what must be a comfort as they guess
In times like the present
When guesses can prove so fatally wrong,
The fact of belonging
To the very select indeed, to those
For whom, just supposing
They do, there will be places on the last
Plane out of disaster.
No, no one is really sorry for their
Heavy gait and careworn
Look, nor would they thank you if you said you were.
– W.H. Auden (1948)