Joseph Solman died a few days ago at the age of 99 and as I saw the newspaper photo of a regal man standing in front of a city street with graffiti scribbles, looking forthright at the camera, I wanted to know more. There is some Solman in the indexes of the books piled on my windowsill, mostly mentions in the WPA stuff, and I had the artist connected in the loose web of my head, with Mark Rothko, but as with any artist who makes a strong body of work over a long period of time, there's a rich resource of images and ideas about Solman.
On the web:
Mercury Gallery has a number of his paintings, monoprints and drawings on their site.
His son, Paul Solman, interviewed him and Dore Ashton about Rothko.

More of Mr. Solman's story is here in his Archives of American Art interview.

Paintings don't live for ever, for sure, but sometimes some of our best paintings tell stories, speak truth even we we can't say a word anymore.
I'm appreciative of the chance to look and listen.

Rachael