Edward Albee’s Seascape (1975)

Edward Albee’s Seascape (1975)

Albee’s Seascape is set on a beach, the evolutionary boundary from which sea creatures emerged to walk on land. The action begins innocently. Charlie and Nancy Man are just finishing a picnic when they encounter two primordial green lizards, Leslie and Sarah,...
Nan Goldin’s CZ and Max on the Beach, Truro, MA (1976)

Nan Goldin’s CZ and Max on the Beach, Truro, MA (1976)

Goldin’s is a spoof at Mickey Mouse’s expense. “CZ and Max on the Beach, Truro, MA” is a staged picnic of CZ and Max on a picnic cloth next to Mickey Mouse’s picture on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. Goldin seems to be suggesting that such outings are...
Michael Bond’s Paddington at the Sea-Side (1975)

Michael Bond’s Paddington at the Sea-Side (1975)

Paddington at the Seaside begins: “Today,” said Mr. Brown at breakfast one bright, summer morning, “feels like the kind of day for taking a young bear to the seaside. Hands up to all those who agree.” So, the Browns pack up the motorcar and...
Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden (1986)

Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden (1986)

Juan Gris’s Woman with a Basket is the dust jacket for the 1st edition of The Garden of Eden. Gris was among Hemingway’s favorite painters, and Patrick Hemingway thought this work expressed his father’s narrative’s “somber...
Larry Rivers’s Picnics (1985-1990)

Larry Rivers’s Picnics (1985-1990)

Rivers expressed his appreciation of good picnic fun in Picnic (1985) and The Pleasant Picnic (1990). Both are inspired by Leger’s series La Partie de Campagne [The Country Outing, or Picnic] (1952/53). The Pleasant Picnic changes the scene. Now the picnickers...
William B. Montgomery’s Industrial Picnic (1986)

William Montgomery’s Industrial Picnic (1986)

Industrial Picnic is William Montgomery’s satirical vision of how we are desensitized by pollution and learn to do with what we have. Wonderful satire. Featured Image: William B. Montgomery. Industrial Picnic. Hand-colored etching.
Blake Edwards’s Blind Date (1987)

Blake Edwards’s Blind Date (1987)

Edwards’s comedy is sometimes madcap, but when matters settle, there is a happy ending with a picnic on the beach. What else is new? See Blake Edwards’s Blind Date (1987). The screenplay is by Dale Launer. Featured Image: Bruce Willis as Walter Davis; Kim Bassinger as...
Jack Vettriano’s Elegy for the Dead Admiral (1994)

Jack Vettriano’s Elegy for the Dead Admiral (1994)

Vettriano’s Elegy for the Dead Admiral is a beach picnic on the sand at the surf’s edge. A woman in red sits with her back to the viewer facing the sea. She is serenaded by two violinists and served by a waiter. The situation alludes to the death of the...
Charles Dance’s Ladies in Lavender (2004)

Charles Dance’s Ladies in Lavender (2004)

Locke’s story “Ladies in Lavender” does not have a picnic. Dance thought better and wrote a beach picnic on the coast of Cornwall into his screenplay. The story is simple. Ursula and Janet, spinster sisters, well on in years, live in a cottage by the sea near the...