Warhol’s Picnic is an early work that lacks the pizazz of the later Pop paintings of the late 1960s. Featured Image: Andy Warhol. Picnic (1955c.), watercolor, ink, gouache on paper.
Allen’s Rubbish Dump is the closest to a spiritual picnic I know of. Christ’s stunning appearance in a wasteland suggests life without beauty when industry pollutes the environment. It is unclear if the roiling clouds are suggesting an approaching...
Anderson series of Idylls are picnicky, filled with people happily dancing and singing on the grass. He called the first Bacchanal and the other Idylls. In an interview, Anderson referenced Matisse’s Luxe, Calme et Volupté as a modern arcadian idyll but does not...
Picasso’s social contacts in Antibes and Juan-les-Pins were varied. Among his American friends were Gerald and Sara Murphy, who rented Villa America in La Garoupe. At that time, Picasso was married to Olga Khokhlova, a ballet dancer. In 1955, Picasso began a...
No food. Diners sit at long tables waiting. Spencer said he forgot it, but this seems disingenuous and intentionally humorous because it defies the expectation that a picnic will include abundant food and drink. See Stanley Spencer. Dinner on the Hotel Lawn (1956-57)....
Motley’s A rooftop party is a variation of a tar beach picnic. Couples are sitting at tables eating and drinking. Good spirits prevail. Motley’s typical attitude and his paintings invariable show African Americans happy in a world of easy living....
Linen’s picnic contrasts the pleasure of the moment with the ruin of the past. The dead freighter has been plunked on a grassy meadow. A surrealistic vision of a topsy-turvy world some call magic realism.
William Kurelek said he carried “wretchedness like a heavy stone sewn up inside of me.” At times, the stone was lifted as in two picnic paintings Manitoba Party (1964) and Out of the Maze (1973), each testifying his recovery from schizophrenia and lost...
Botero’s picnics express moments of happiness, abundance, and love of life in the landscape with ample food, wine, and other provisions. Sometimes, his picnickers are so relaxed they fall asleep. His early exploration of the picnic theme, Picnic in the Mountains,...
![Pál Szinyei Merse’s Postage Picnic in May [aka Majális] (1967)](https://picnicwit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Pál-Szinyei-Merses-Picnic-in-May-aka-Majális-1873-1080x675.jpg)
The Hungarian government has issued postage stamps in honor of Merse’s standing among the nation’s most important painters. The former was published in 1966 and the latter in 1967. Majális celebrates the seasonal change and the Hungarian custom of dining outside in...
