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Lunch

by George Tooker

Lunch is an indirect reference to the contentious lunch counter sit-ins occurring across the nation during the 1960s, but its pale palette and dull figures have none of the heated passion so often associated with them in real life.  Instead, Tooker’s figures all bear an uncanny resemblance to each other and eat their identical lunches with identical motions. 

Can you locate the African-American man in this painting?  Does he appear integrated or isolated from his fellow diners? 

(Pohl 93-4)

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George Tooker - Lunch

George Tooker, Lunch, 1964.  Egg tempera on gessoed panel, 20 x 26 in. 

Museum Purchase, Derby Fund, from the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art 1930-1970

Within Race Relations...
George Biddle Adolf Dehn Jacob Lawrence Jacob Lawrence Julius T. Bloch George Tooker

Romare Bearden
George Biddle
Julius T. Bloch
Adolf Dehn
Joseph Delaney
Boris Gorelick
Robert Gwathmey
Joe Jones
Jacob Lawrence
Louis Lozowick
Ben Shahn
George Tooker
James Turnbull


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