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One of Our Bombers is Missing
Emanuel (Mac) Raboy began his early professional life working in the Federal Art Project's Graphic Art Division, spanning the second half of the 1930s. His high-contrast wood engravings, dramatically composed subjects, expressive bodies, and social…
Fields in Spring
From an elevated perspective we look into a pleasingly enclosed, bowl-shaped valley; agricultural plantings emphasize the land’s underlaying contours. An arboreal line runs diagonally across the property. In the middle ground, a small house and…
Flash Gordon: The Fire Plain
Flash Gordon was a comic-strip hero dating to 1934, created by King Features to compete with the successful Buck Rogers series. It ran until 2003 under various artists, for our purposes including Emanuel (Mac) Raboy between 1948 and his death in…
Cropper's Return
In a small, virtually unfurnished shack three people receive the titular sharecropper—two women and an elderly man, perhaps his father. Raboy’s possible allusion to the Prodigal Son’s return, however, is a sad moment: highlighted at the center of…
Musical Appeal
Two blocks of tenement buildings dominate this urban scene, in hues of rusty brick, gray, and white. A slightly convex picture plane tilts down dark gray sidewalks and a street in the foreground to give them even greater prominence. Only a band of…
High in the Tree Tops
We’re asked to adopt a perspective almost never accessible to humans: near the top of a tree, at close proximity to parrots. A light wash of cloudy white and blue in the background encloses the birds; their distinctive colors echo those of the tree’s…
The Gift
Four children encounter each other upon a path in Central Park, the city skyline silhouetted against a colorful sky. Two older—and, judging from their clothing, apparently wealthier—children accept a flower offered by a young girl holding a larger…
Lilies and Shell
It’s possible that the flowers depicted in this still life are wild mountain lilies (Lilium auratum), also called the golden-rayed lily of Japan. Whatever the case, flowers’ size and colorful radials draw our attention inward—which is similar in…
Orchard
The title of this painting is paradoxical, since none of the trees depicted appear to be the fruiting varieties usually associated with commercial orchards. Nor is it entitled "Arboretum," a collection of species under a landscaping rubric. Instead,…
Vase of Asters
In a darkened room, light dramatically illuminates an arrangement of flowers and dried oak leaves in a simple white vase. The leaf shapes and Sharp’s brushwork create a flamelike appearance, albeit in a more muted color palette—even the bouquet’s…