Brothers

With the money he earned from the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, Malvin Gray Johnson traveled to Virginia, marking the only time he spent as an artist in the South. In a town called Brightwood, he created numerous studies of rural landscapes and "folk types," including this scene of two brothers sharing a wooden bench. Their blue overalls and white shirts are almost identical; one boy wears a straw hat, the other a bib cap. The slanting landscape makes the viewer feel as off balance as the boy on the right; it also places the viewer on a slightly higher level than the two boys, but it does not prevent them from meeting our eyes. Noted for their “sardonic humor and mystical pathos,” Johnson’s Brightwood, Virginia, paintings are recognized as some of his finest works.