George Tooker: Reality Recurs as a Dream

For more than 60 years, George Tooker (1920–2011) created luminous and often enigmatic paintings, addressing issues from alienation and the dehumanizing aspects of contemporary society to personal meditations on the human condition. From the Cold War urban purgatories and bureaucratic paranoia of his early paintings to his later warm, glowing images of lovers embracing in fields or found in windows, Tooker’s spiritual vision ultimately stands as a quest for the endless possibilities of intimacy, compassion and tolerance. Widespread public recognition first came to Tooker through his best-known painting, “Subway” (1950), a definitive image of anxiety and dread. His more utopian themes of peace, brotherhood and reconciliation would find expression in such works as “Embrace of Peace II” (1988). Published in conjunction with DC Moore Gallery’s memorial exhibition, George Tooker: Reality Recurs as a Dream features paintings from every period of Tooker’s long career.