Window VII

In George Tooker's mysterious Window VII (Desdemona), a nude white woman, her rotund belly catching the light that softly reflects upward on her shadowed face, lifts a curtain to glance out as a Black man peers over her shoulder. Tooker rendered the scene as a series of gracefully curving, smoothly rounded forms of almost sculptural weight. The soft red background visible behind the curtain and the glimpse of folded fabric just seen at the lower right reinforce the erotic pairing of the figures, glimpsed as if during an interlude in an afternoon of lovemaking.

Window VII (Desdemona) is one of an eight-painting series of images showing figures in windows. Executed between 1954 and 1968, these works were inspired by scenes the artist glimpsed as he looked out of his own windows toward a neighboring rooming house in the Brooklyn Heights section of New York City. On warm summer nights, the windows often were filled with the forms of residents hoping to catch a refreshing waft of air. Contemplative and unselfconscious, the figures that fill Tooker's windows are unaware of the viewer's gaze, which thereby assumes a voyeuristic function heightened, in this case, by the obviously sexual overtones of the scene. Following an ancient tradition of illusionistic still life painting, Tooker's painted windows correspond with the edges of his actual paintings, setting up a dialogue between image and reality heightened by the rounded, seamless perfection of his forms.

Tooker once described the building that provided his window subjects as a Puerto Rican rooming house, but his paintings portray a variety of racial and ethnic types. Window VII (Desdemona) is the only work in the series that shows an interracial relationship. The pairing of a white woman and a Black man, still controversial in the early 1960s, led the first owner of the painting to assign its subtitle, linking Tooker's image to William Shakespeare's drama Othello. Its eponymous protagonist, a dark-skinned Moor (a Northern African), murders his innocent wife, the Venetian lady Desdemona, in a jealous rage. The painting's references to the play—the biracial coupling and the brooding anticipation of tragedy—seem inescapable. Tooker's use of the archaic technique of egg tempera paint and wood panel support further underscores the painting's association with the Italian Renaissance, the setting for Othello. Charged with both eroticism and tragedy, Window VII (Desdemona) provides subtle contrasts with another work in the Terra Foundation collection on the theme of Shakespearean lovers, Washington Allston's Lorenzo and Jessica (TF 2000.3). Tooker himself disavowed any such narrative connection, however, claiming that he intended his painting simply as a positive statement in favor of interracial marriage. As is typical of Tooker's often mysterious works, the painting offers the elements of a story, leaving the viewer to ponder its outcome and meaning.

George Tooker, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California (organizer). Venues: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, July 13–September 2, 1974; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 7–October 20, 1974; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, December 5, 1974–January 5, 1975; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, January 28–March 16, 1975. [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 1994.

Visions of a Nation: Exploring Identity through American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 10, 1996–January 12, 1997.

Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.

New Faces, New Places: Recent Additions to the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 14–December 31, 2000.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–July 1, 2001.

American Moderns, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, July 14–October 7, 2001.

Mid-Century Modern: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 20–July 7, 2002.

George Tooker: A Retrospective, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Ohio (organizer). Venues: National Academy Museum, New York, New York, October 2, 2008–January 4, 2009; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 30–April 5, 2009; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, May 1–September 6, 2009. [exh. cat.]

Garver, Thomas H. "George Tooker." American Art Review 1:5 (July–October 1974): 81. Ill. p. 81.

Garver, Thomas H. George Tooker. (exh. cat., The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco). San Francisco, California: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1974. Text; cat. no. 18 (color).

Garver, Thomas H. George Tooker. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1985. Text p. 135; ill. p. 61 (color).

American Paintings IV 1986. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 1986. Text p. 104; ill. p. 105 (color).

Frankel, Stephen Robert. "The Modern Iconography of George Tooker." Art Today 1:2 (Summer 1986): 22. Ill. p. 22.

Garver, Thomas H. George Tooker. San Francisco, California: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1992. Text p. 60; ill. p. 62 (color).

Window VII (Desdemona), George Tooker. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 1994. Ill. (black & white).

Spring, Justin. "An Interview with George Tooker." American Art 16:1 (Spring 2002): 60–81. Text p. 73; fig. 9, p. 72 (black & white).

Cozzolino, Robert et al. George Tooker. London, England: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2008. Text pp. 33, 188 (checklist); Ill. Pl. 38, p. 144 (color).