The Waiting Room George Tooker

George tooker the waiting room 1959 egg tempera on wood smithsonian american art museum gift of sc. The waiting room was created in 1959 by george tooker in magic realism style. Tookers painting ward renders patients anonymity and a sense of abandonment in the hospital setting with government bureaucracy invoked by the american flags hanging on the wall see p.
the waiting room george tooker

It is not living the depiction of liminal space as a kind of purgatory is used throughout tookers works.

The waiting room george tooker. The men and women in waiting room 1957 simply wait catatonically and. You can see shes put one foot in front of the other but her body seems frozen. George tooker grew frustrated with the bureaucracy while trying to obtain building permits for a house he bought in new york. The painting was inspired by tookers own frustration waiting for building permits and he says the waiting room is a kind of purgatory people just waiting waiting to wait.

This artwork will be painted by an experienced artist. Commission your own museum quality hand painted reproduction of the waiting room on a high quality cotton linen canvas originally by artist george tooker. George tooker the waiting room 1959 smithsonian american art museum washington dc in waiting room the people all seem connected by the colour palette but also by the languid positioning of the figures. In 1950 tooker and his lover fellow artist william christopher rented an illegal loft in an unfashionable area of town painting and making furniture in order to survive.

The anxious expression on her face suggests she knows shes going nowhere. George tookers work expressed a 20th century brand of anxiety and alienation. Read 1200 customer reviews. This painting by george tooker is full of entrances and exits yet the people in the image appear trapped.

The two men seated are sleeping weary from their long wait. Above the subway from 1950. Johnson son inc 19694743. After a few years they moved to vermont and spent their summers in malaga spain.

In that painting the waiting people are reproduced several times to emphasize their anonymity and the multiple bureaucrats peer out from frosted windows with only their eyes and noses visible bringing to mind the concept of the medical gaze promulgated by the french philosopher michel foucault. Look at the woman in the center of the painting with the grey overcoat.