Simkhovitch’s The Picnic is a day of leisure, but the group seems mirthless.
They sit on bare earth, and each is unsmiling and subdued. There is an absence of picnic joy as a small picnic cloth is spread around which they all gather. A man in a bathing suit reclines, his back to the viewer. Behind him, a man clothed in pants and a sleeveless undershirt looks Luxe at two women. One woman is leaning over. another woman is emptying a picnic basket.
In the mid-ground, along a river or inlet, a man of color and child walk. The man carries a towel on his arm. Behind is the river, and along the further shore are commercial boats used for carrying coal or something like that. Beyond the boats is a factory, and it stacks. Above is a blue sky.
Featured Image: Simka Simkovitch. The Picnic (1930s), oil on canvas.