Still Life with Mug, Pipe and Book — John Frederick Peto

Still Life with Mug, Pipe and Book,1899 by John Frederick Peto (1854-1907)

Mockingbird — Aron Wiesenfeld 

Mockingbird, 2023 by Aron Wiesenfeld (b. 1972)

Skin Graft — Otto Dix

Skin Graft (Transplantation), from The War series, 1924 by Otto Dix (1891–1969)

Lord Candlestick’s Horses — Leonora Carrington

Lord Candlestick’s Horses, 1938 by Leonora Carrington (1917-2011)

Une après-midi — Xiao Guo Hui

Une après-midi, 2022 by Xiao Guo Hui (b. 1969)

Penelope — Glyn Philpot

Penelope, 1923 by Glyn Philpot (1884-1937)

The War Crime — Ben Quilty

The War Crime, 2022 by Ben Quilty (b. 1973)

“The Dreadful Has Already Happened” — Mark Strand

“The Dreadful Has Already Happened”

by

Mark Strand


The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.
They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel
them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air.
Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.

A small band is playing old fashioned marches.
My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot.
My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving
to somebody else. There are palm trees.

The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall
billowy clouds move behind them. “Go on, Boy,”
I hear somebody say, “Go on.”
I keep wondering if it will rain.

The sky darkens. There is thunder.
“Break his legs,” says one of my aunts,
“Now give him a kiss.” I do what I’m told.
The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.

The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh
when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them
out in the air for the flies. The relatives cheered.
It was about that time I gave up.

Now, when I answer the phone, his lips
are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered
around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search
I find his feet. He is what is left of my life.

Thanatopsis — Ed Emshwiller

Morning — Norman Stevens

Morning, 1974 by Norman Stevens (1937-1988)

Nightmare — Salman Toor 

Nightmare, 2020 by Salman Toor (b. 1983)

Girl Reading — George Clausen

Girl Reading, George Clausen (1852 – 1944)

The Hall of Spiders (An Illustration for Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast) — Charles W. Stewart

On the Way to the Doctor, 1974 by Charles W. Stewart (1915 – 2001).

Part of a series of unpublished illustrations that were to illustrate Mervyn Peake’s 1950 novel, Gormenghast. (More here.)

King Cheetah — Angela Gram

King Cheetah, 2022 by Angela Gram (b. 1985)

Playground No.6 — Peter Colville Horridge Gardner

Playground No.6, 1968 by Peter Colville Horridge Gardner (b. 1921)

Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia) — Alice Neel

Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia), 1967 by Alice Neel (1900-1984)

Meshes of the Afternoon