Vernon Seymour, 1971, 26" x 20"
I admired this painting for about a year at the South Loop Flea Market but just didn't feel that it was up to my usual standards for purchase. After seeing the painting six or seven times I eventually decided that I couldn't live without it and I ended up taking it home for $5.00. This painting is one of only three or four still lifes in my entire collection (see "Still Life with Light Blue Plate, Vase, and Pitcher" in Gallery I, "Green Jug Between Squashed Chicken and Oval Chicken" in Gallery VII, and "Black Cat Vase" in Gallery IX). The deep royal blue curtain showcasing the violin and the leather bound books give this work an air of dignity which I find very calming, and I really can't explain why I passed up this masterpiece for almost a year. You would think that the perfection of the composition, Seymour's lavish attention to detail, and the studied ambiguity of the objects displayed would have grabbed me from the start, but alas, it did not. In any case, the painting is now one of my favorites.