Sleep

Sleep

This painting seems to be a hybrid of portraiture, domestic genre, and still life. A sleeping young woman, whose cheeks and camisole echo the rose’s color, is posed so that her resting fingers appear only inches away from a bunch of grapes. A portion of that bunch, moreover, appears to be reaching toward her as well. What is happening in the woman’s dreams cannot be known; furthermore, the painting’s creation of a viewer beholding her renders such questions not simply unknowable but perhaps uncomfortable.

About the Artist: We haven’t located much reliable information about this artist. Lubovsky was born in Bialystok, Russia and immigrated to the US in 1907, becoming a citizen in 1937. He exhibited at the Municipal Art Gallery in 1914, where his painting “In the Depths” was called “gruesome as a subject...but great for imaginative force” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle 11 Jan. 1914: 9); Lubovsky also was represented at a 1915 Friends of Young Artists show under the auspices of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. 13 more images at FAP.

Lubovsky, Maxim Harry, 1877-1967

Federal Art Project

1936-08-24

Ritz, Abigail (photography)

Cooper, Ken (biography)

New Deal Gallery, Genesee Valley Council on the Arts

Object #FA18201

jpeg, 923 KB
jpeg, 10.8 MB

Still image

108

Oil painting

29.5 x 23.5 in.

Condition: surface dirt, scratches, pitted