The Visitation, dated August 11, 1921, pastel on paper
“It is hard to ‘love people’, because ‘people’ is an abstraction. Why not love a person or a family, something concrete.” (1956)
Portrait of Griswold Hurlbert, oil on board, 15 x 12 in.
“We Americans are the world’s best obeyers when it comes to obeying money and machinery. We stand in line, jump to attention, get out of bed, go to work, sit at table or generally obey any mechanical contrivance which immediately dictates to us, and not a person. But what power to place in the hand of the man who sets all this machinery in motion!” —from the essay “Obedience” (1936)
Gertrude Knitting, c. 1970, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in.
“Civilizations, like persons, exhibit the same symptoms in senility: an overwhelming desire for security and comfort with a minimum of manual effort; and will submit to indignities for their sake.” (1954)
Girl with Necklace, c. 1945, oil on canvas, 15 x 18 in.
“Christian Civilization, morally considered, means simply the sense in the person of virtue and the sense of sin. It means, in a word, responsibility.” (1943)
Gertrude with Violin, c. 1946, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in.
“One thing common to the millions of conformist individualists is that they are suffering under the delusion that they are alone and fighting a back-to-the-wall losing battle against authority. Actually, the only man who stands alone today is the person (not individual) who makes decisions which are basically moral, and who takes full responsibility.” (1961)
