painting of the month

Skating in Central Park -- Agnes Tait, 1934 (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

jean and cane

Today would have been the birthday of author Jean Toomer, born on December 26, 1894 in Washington, D.C. You can read more about Toomer's unusual life here, and one of my favorite books is a short collection of stories and moments called Cane that Toomer published in 1923. It's really beautiful writing, with a haunting moodiness and resonant characters. Like Fern, who watches the world from her rural Georgia porch, her eyes resting "idly where the sun, molten and glorious, was pouring down between the fringe of pines...If it were dusk, then they'd wait for the search-light of the evening train which you could see miles up the track before it flared across the Dixie Pike, close to her home...Like her face, the whole countryside seemed to flow into her eyes."

I didn't see the recent Lifetime Georgia O'Keeffe bio-pic starring Joan Allen, but O'Keeffe knew Jean Toomer and in the Joan Allen version Toomer was played by Henry Simmons. To me, Giancarlo Esposito always seems like the perfect actor to play Jean Toomer, but I'll have to Netflix Henry Simmons' take on the role and maybe he'll change my mind.

christmas morning, breakfast

Christmas Morning, Breakfast -- Horace Pippin, 1945 (Cincinnati Art Museum)