How did I miss this before? Maybe I wasn’t ready, til now, to understand it. But after what happened, what’s still happening, this is the perfect tool, maybe the only tool.
After 1994, nearly all of Latimer’s paintings feature one or more “highlight figures,” people in a painting whose coloration has the clarity and brightness of the restored Sistine Chapel frescoes, as contrasted with the duller, more commonplace tones of everything else in the composition. They seem out-of-place and fantastical, even cartoonish, and yet Latimer employed the same level of microscopic detail in her “highlight figures” as in their surroundings.
The first critics who saw Performance misunderstood Latimer’s introduction of “highlight” figures, because the painting is set on the stage of the Providence Performing Arts Center, and the central figure is the artist’s recently deceased friend, the singer Pamela Enoch. Because she appears on the stage as if she were performing a concert, Enoch’s heightened colors were taken at the time to represent the effect of theatrical spotlights. Arthur Mallory’s review called the lighting “sentimental in an otherwise naturalistic work,” noting that true spotlights would have enhanced the colors of the surrounding stage as well.
Magda Meszaros is visible in the front row, the only member of the audience. She has turned in her seat to face the artist. Meszaros is not portrayed as a “highlight” figure, but in the same comparatively muted tones as the theatre.
Discussion questions:
a. As you view the many “highlight” figures in the remaining paintings in this exhibit, consider whether these figures seem more or less “real” to you than those painted in ordinary colors. Why?
b. Critics and biographers have puzzled over Latimer’s words, “what happened, what’s still happening,” which seem to refer to the event or events that inspired or impelled her to adopt the “highlight” style. But what events were they, and how did they lead to this change?
c. Not until 2025 did Latimer paint Magda Ridley Meszaros as a “highlight” figure. Usually she appears in ordinary tones, as here. Why is this so?
d. Why does Meszaros wear a puzzled expression?
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59. Critique (1997)
Acrylic on canvas, 44 x 67”
Davison Art Center
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
Latimer painted this piece to commemorate the addition of her Self-Portrait with Surrogates (#19) to the permanent collection of the RISD Museum. The setting is the Contemporary Artists gallery of the Museum; Self-Portrait with Surrogates hangs at the center of the composition, with adjacent works also visible, notably Intelligentsia (1986) by her friend and classmate J. J. Kramer.
In the foreground is the child Lisa Wilson (the subject of Self-Portrait with Surrogates) painted as a “highlight” figure. The young girl is presented as if she were a critical viewer of Self-Portrait with Surrogates; she is turned three-quarters toward the artist, but her left hand is raised toward the painting in a dismissive gesture. Her face is wry and full of humor; she appears to like the artist, even if she does not think much of the painting.
Discussion questions:
a. How do you interpret Lisa Wilson’s apparent attitude towards Latimer’s earlier painting? Is Latimer ridiculing her own work?
b. Why is Lisa Wilson portrayed as younger than she was in Self-Portrait with Surrogates? Why without visible evidence of abuse? What is the significance of the party dress she wears?
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60. Excerpt from The Silent Voices (1997)
Video recording, 23 Min.
By permission of WGBH Television
and the Public Broadcasting Service.
While working on Critique, Latimer was one of the subjects of Elijah Baptista’s video documentary concerning contemporary artists, The Silent Voices. In the excerpt shown here, she stands in the Contemporary Artists Gallery, making preliminary drawings. Oddly, she is not sketching the gallery or the paintings on the wall, but detailing the face of Lisa Wilson herself. Although there are no photographs or prior sketches evident (apart from Self Portrait with Surrogates), the drawing is precise, showing the same wry expression that will appear in the finished work.
Discussion questions:
a. Now that you see Latimer’s manner of speaking and moving, are you surprised? Does she seem like the sort of person who would produce this sort of work?
b. At the end of the excerpt, Baptista asks Latimer why she needed to come to the Museum in order to sketch a study of Wilson’s face. Latimer’s answer is, “You have to paint what you see, not what you think you’re supposed to see.” This admonition is a commonplace among visual artists. What does it mean when uttered by someone who paints with such obvious imagination?
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72. Grace (2001)
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 60”
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art,
North Adams, Massachusetts
One of several pieces recounting Latimer’s difficult relationship with her parents, Grace portrays a Thanksgiving dinner in their home. Her father, Mason Latimer (1930-2008), poses as if saying grace before the meal, but both he and his wife Sheila Rosenberg (1935-2014) are staring scornfully at Theresa Rosenberg Latimer and Magda Ridley Meszaros, who sit at the opposite end of the table, looking down at their plates.
Standing behind the artist and Meszaros, apparently observed by no one, is Pamela Enoch (the subject of Performance, #49), the only “highlight” figure in the composition. Smiling, she holds her palms above the heads of her two friends as if in benediction.
Discussion questions:
a. Critics have noted references in this painting to both Rockwell’s Freedom From Want (1943) (Fig. 18) and Dali’s Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955) (Fig. 19). What is the point of quoting two such wildly disparate pieces together? Is this a parody?
b. Pamela Enoch appears in many of Latimer’s works after 1994, always as a “highlight” figure in her mid-twenties, dressed for a performance. Why repeat the same person so often, and why always in the same clothes? Is Enoch a symbolic figure?
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91. The Mourners (2008)
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 30”
American Labor Museum,
Haledon, New Jersey
The setting is a parking lot in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, that stands on the location of the 1908 Alger’s Mill fire, in which 34 workers were killed. Two distinct groups of “highlight” figures appear. Near the center stand the Alger brothers, the Mill owners whose negligence was generally blamed for the deaths, although none were ever prosecuted. They bow their heads and clasp their hands before them. Standing in a circle around them are 25 victims of the fire, their own sorrowful gazes fixed on the Alger brothers. All are dressed as they would have been in the late 19th or early 20th centuries.
Here, as elsewhere, Latimer has been praised for the quality of her research. Although historians have authenticated the faces of most of the fire victims, many of the relevant photographs have taken years or even decades to find.
Discussion questions:
a. Most of the figures in this painting are younger than they were at the time of the 1908 fire. Tara Aquino, in her assiduous tally of Latimer’s subjects (2038), has calculated that 84% of the “highlight” figures are in their 20s and 30s, and the rest are mostly children. By contrast, Latimer’s non-highlighted figures show an ordinary spread of ages. Why does Latimer make this age distinction between “highlight” and “ordinary” figures? Why not portray people as they were at the time of the relevant events?
b. One of the striking things about this painting is that the victims appear to be mourning for those who were responsible for their deaths. What is Latimer’s message here?
c. Young Lisa Wilson, a recurring figure in Latimer’s work, is visible at the far right of the composition, gesturing towards the group of mourning figures. Why include a contemporary figure in an otherwise period group? Is there a connection between this p
ainting and the others in which she appears?
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117. Self-Portrait with Family (2015)
Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 45”
Private collection
The setting is Latimer’s own bedroom, recognizable from the furniture and memorabilia. Latimer at her then-current age of 56 crouches in the bed in a nightgown, her face hidden in her hands as if in fear, sorrow, or pain. Standing by the side of the bed, glowering down at their daughter in reproach or rage, are her parents Mason Latimer and Sheila Rosenberg. They are “highlight” figures.
Kneeling on the bed with Latimer is Magda Meszaros. Both are painted in muted colors, as contrasted with the highlighted parents. Meszaros is in a protective posture, one hand on Latimer’s curved back and the other gesturing as to repel an invader.
Discussion questions:
a. Why does the artist paint her parents as they appeared in their twenties, before her own birth?
b. Why are neither Meszaros’s fierce gaze nor her guardian hand directed at the figures of the parents (the only other people in the composition), but at a point beyond the right border of the picture?
c. This work was composed in the year following Sheila Rosenberg’s death from brain cancer, which was also the year in which Latimer and Meszaros finally married. How many uses of the word “family” are implied by the title?
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131. To Interfere, for Good, in Human Matters (2018)
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 60”
F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery,
Reed College, Portland, Oregon
The scene is a crowded street in downtown Providence. A homeless woman with a young child sits on the doorstep of what may be a church; they are malnourished, shabbily dressed, and the woman holds out her hand as if asking for alms. The dozens of others on the street around her are a mix of both “highlight” figures and characters painted in muted colors (as are the beggar woman and her child). The composition pushes the eye of the viewer back and forth between the different groups in a sort of tennis match: from a “highlight” figure one is drawn to a muted figure, then to another “highlight” figure, then to another muted figure, back and forth until one has scrutinized every figure in the picture.
This oscillation forces the viewer to see the contrast between these two groups. Superficially, the muted figures wear everyday clothes contemporary to 2018, while the “highlight” figures are clad in varying styles from the previous 150 years. More significant, however, are their differing reactions to the homeless pair. The muted figures bypass the seated beggars, or approach them while looking elsewhere; a few are watching them from the corners of their eyes. The “highlight” figures, on the other hand, all stand motionless, each facing the mother and child, each with a look of pity or compassion on her or his face. Some reach out their hands as if to touch the pair, but none actually reach them.
Discussion questions:
a. As in other Latimer paintings, critics have observed references to other works, notably Courbet’s Real Allegory of the Artist’s Studio (1855) (Fig. 40) and Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1504) (Fig. 41). Again, why does Latimer quote from two such different pieces?
b. Athena Ptolemaios (2025) has suggested that there is a racial or cultural message here. The muted figures are turning away from one of their own, while the “highlight” figures reach out to the stranger. Are we being shown than it is easier to feel compassion for those who are far away, or different?
c. While her technique here earned much praise, Latimer has been criticized for the blatantness of the message. Thomas Taney (2030) was particularly scornful of Latimer’s unexplained use of a passage from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843) as the title of the piece. Do you agree with Taney?
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146. Almost (2022)
Oil on poplar wood, 30 x 21”
Private collection
Almost is the last portrait Latimer made of Magda Ridley Meszaros during the latter’s lifetime. It is an unsentimental portrayal, detailing the damage done by both breast cancer and chemotherapy with all the hyperrealist accuracy at Latimer’s command. From her favorite chair, Meszaros gazes quietly at the artist. One detects neither fear, defiance, nor even acceptance, only the affection of one life partner for another.
Standing on either side of Meszaros are four “highlight” figures: Pamela Enoch and three other women who have not been identified. They are looking not at Meszaros but at the artist, their arms held wide.
Discussion questions:
a. The subject, size and materials of Almost are identical to those of Magda #4 (#34), so that it is natural to compare them. Whereas the brushwork in Magda #4 pointed to Meszaros herself, in Almost the strokes radiate from the “highlight” figures; even the strokes with which Meszaros is painted come from them. What other differences do you see between the two works? What similarities?
b. Why are the “highlight” figures smiling?
•
155. Comfort (2025)
Acrylic on canvas, 11 x 81⁄2”
Private collection
The last known completed work of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer is Comfort, found among her personal effects after her death by medication overdose at the age of 66.
It is a quadruple portrait, somewhat reminiscent of her Three Women (#1). The setting is the exterior of Latimer’s home, although the focus is so tight that only certain abnormalities in the brickwork allow us to identify it. The four figures are Pamela Enoch dressed for a performance, Lisa Wilson in her party dress, Magda Meszaros as a young model, and Latimer herself at 30, the beginning of her most productive period. Latimer stands slightly in the foreground, one step ahead of the others; Enoch and Wilson are to her left, Meszaros to her right, as if they are ready to catch her if she falls.
All four women are “highlight” figures, bright and clear with strong definitions and confident lines. They are more radiant than the “highlight” figures of Latimer’s earlier works; light pours from them, and they drown out the color of the bricks behind them. Enoch’s, Wilson’s and Meszaros’s faces are fixed on Latimer, who is smiling broadly, with flushed cheeks and eyes full of hope.
Discussion questions:
a. The title Comfort was suggested by Paula Tarso, executrix of Latimer’s artistic estate; we do not know what Latimer herself planned to call it. Do you think the name fits?
•
Difference of
Opinion
Meda Kahn
Mr. Important 1 gestures at her, clears his throat. “And what about…?”
“Oh, her. No, she’s just the janitor. She’s a litch. She can’t even talk.”
“Well, then.” Important 1 takes Important 2 by the arm. “Shall we discuss…”
Keiya’s fingers clench around the handle of the vacuum. One advantage to this position: nobody believes you’re listening. Nobody pays attention to a slump-backed brownish girl with droopy-lidded eyes. She’s got all the genes that make her look Less Human, according to the Important powers that be. Dark and flat and empty eyes, waylaid by a passing speck of dust, turned down at the edges same as her mouth. All of her face droops. She’s like a flower that no one ever watered.
Maudlin.
It’s not her fault, of course. Problem is Keiya’s brain never told her to paste her lips upright if she wants people to be nice. It’s the IQ machine. She’s been told she’d make a very good robot, all things considered.
Her hair is fuzzy on the back of her neck. A cluster of bees.
The windows of the station reveal an expanse of space that is flatter and blacker than even Keiya’s eyes. It’s supposed to have depth, but the vacuum—the big one—is so big that it circles back round to look flat again. The universe: one thing as void and useless as she is.
It’s a comforting mantra.
Of course Morit has to go and change that.
She’s a consultant of something-or-other, bright and cheery and spiky-haired, walks like she’s g
ot the world on her shoulders and doesn’t mind at all. Woman in a man’s shirt and khakis. Well, maybe you can’t specify like that. But it’s a shirt with buttons and a collar and rolled up at the sleeves. Her wrists are sharp and mobile.
She’s wearing rectangular glasses and carrying a clippad, and she sweeps onto the TSS with this Can-Do Attitude to investigate every nook and cranny. Improve every shortcoming! Quality control! That, Keiya thinks wryly, should ideally involve putting me out the airlock. But Morit doesn’t even pause, just springs past her to peer wisely at a faulty aero vent.
That’s what irks Keiya, at first. No no no, Ms. Quality Control, don’t you see. You’re supposed to throw me out with the dust. Clean it! Fix it! Dispose of me.
But it’s true, even Keiya must acknowledge, she herself is excellent at cleaning toilets.
So she does that. For the rest of the week. By the end of her Friday shift, Keiya is almost forgetting to worry. And then there’s Morit, leaning against the wall by the sink, she’s wearing jeans and her going-home jacket and Morit is like, “Sooooo.”
Keiya blinks up at her pretending to beam lasers out her brain, like, I cannot talk. Have you not noticed that I cannot talk? You are, perhaps, not the sharpest tack in the room, and this room includes me.
“Abya,” says Morit. “Don’t you have, like, a communication device of some kind?”
Well, sure, she’s got her tablet, but it’s not like anyone wants to talk to her, and it’s too much of a bother to program the right phrases in. The ones she’d use. She starts thinking about the very smallest things she wants to say, and her head spins and she has to lie down.
So, in theory yes. But really, no.
She shrugs.
Morit’s brow furrows. Morit is clearly not used to this kind of reticence. Keiya thinks, Ha ha. I have got you now. Got for what purpose, to what end, she doesn’t know. But it’s perversely satisfying, how the first time someone tries to talk to her she’s managed to put them off.
“I swear to god,” says Morit. “If they haven’t given you a keyboard of some kind, I’m going to HR—”
Heiresses of Russ 2014 Page 23