“Bye,” Mona whispers. I watch her until she disappears into the house.
My mom used to swim every morning at the YWCA. When I was little she took me along. I didn’t like swimming. I’d sit in a chair with a book while she went up and down, up and down, a dim streak in the water. When I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, it seemed like Mom was a lab rat doing tasks, the way she kept touching one side of the pool and then the other. At last she climbed out and pulled off her bathing cap. In the locker room she hung up her suit, a thin gray rag dripping on the floor. Most people put the hook of their padlock through the straps of their suit, so the suits could hang outside the lockers without getting stolen, but my mom never did that. She just tied her suit loosely onto the lock. “No one’s going to steal that stretchy old thing,” she said. And no one did.
That should have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t. My dad says Mom was an elemental, a sort of stranger, not of our kind. It wasn’t my fault she left, it was because she couldn’t learn to breathe on land. That’s the worst story I’ve ever heard. I’ll never tell Mona, not ever, not even when we’re leaving for Colorado with everything we need in the back of my car, and I meet her at the grocery store the way we’ve already planned, and she runs out smiling under her orange baseball cap. I won’t tell her how dangerous attics are, or how some people can’t start over, or how I still see my mom in shop windows with her long hair the same silver-gray as her coat, or how once when my little cousins came to visit we went to the zoo and the seals recognized me, they both stood up in the water and talked in a foreign language. I won’t tell her. I’m too scared. I won’t even tell her what she needs to know: that we’ve got to be tougher than our moms, that we’ve got to have different stories, that she’d better not change her mind and drop me in Colorado because I won’t understand, I’ll hate her forever and burn her stuff and stay up all night screaming at the woods, because it’s stupid not to be able to breathe, who ever heard of somebody breathing in one place but not another, and we’re not like that, Mona and me, and selkie stories are only for losers stuck on the wrong side of magic—people who drop things, who tell all, who leave keys around, who let go.
NEBULA AWARD NOMINEE
Best SHORT STORY
“SELECTED PROGRAM NOTES FROM THE RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION OF THERESA ROSENBERG LATIMER”
KENNETH SCHNEYER
This is Kenneth Schneyer’s first Nebula nomination. “Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer” was also a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. It was published in Clockwork Phoenix 4.
1. Three Women (1978)
Oil on canvas, 30 x 40”
Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, Michigan
Latimer painted Three Women while still a student at the Rhode Island School of Design. It is the earliest completed painting that displays the hyperrealism characterizing the first period of her work.
Three young women sit close together on a park bench in autumn. Two hold hands, while the third has her hand on the knee of the center figure. Their expressions are serious, almost stern, as if they resent the artist’s presumption in portraying them.
At this stage of her career, Latimer was still experimenting with issues of compositional balance. The brightness of the orange trees offsets the dour colors of the models’ clothes; the tilt of the models’ heads and the orientation of their legs impel the viewer to look at the trees rather than at them. It as if the viewer is being pushed away from people and towards nature.
None of these models appears in any of Latimer’s later work. Presumably they were fellow RISD students. Latimer herself appears in early works of others who were at RISD at the time, including A. C. Stahl and J. J. Kramer.
Discussion questions:
a. Use the magnifying lens provided to examine the hairs on the models’ arms, the loose fibers in their sweaters, and the veins in the leaves. Many details in a Latimer painting are not visible to those who view the work at ordinary distances. Why do you think she inserted such typically invisible minutiae? What effect do they have on your experience of the painting?
19. Self-Portrait with Surrogates (1984)
Oil on canvas, 51 x 77-1/4”
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island
The first of Latimer’s paintings to draw critical attention, Self-Portrait with Surrogates portrays the notorious child abuse and murder case of the Wilson family, which dominated the Rhode Island news media at the time. Seven-year-old Lisa Wilson, clad only in underwear and displaying both old scars and fresh cuts, is being beaten with an electrical extension cord wielded by her father, while her mother holds her in place. None of the figures displays any emotion; it is as if they are spectators at the event.
The details, again in the hyperrealist style, closely match those of the Wilson case. The family home is accurately depicted, and the scars on Lisa Wilson’s body correspond with photographs in the court file.
Discussion questions:
a. The composition and live-action flavor of this work resemble 18th- and 19th-century patriotic or polemical depictions of battles and famous events; David’s The Death of Socrates (1787) (Fig. 5) is a clear influence. Why does Latimer employ such devices in a portrayal of domestic violence? Does it alter your perception of what you are “really” seeing?
b. Some biographers associate the painting’s title with the emotional and physical abuse Latimer herself experienced as a child. Is there anything in the picture itself to show that this is really a “self portrait?”
c. Does the fact that Latimer’s parents were living when she painted this work alter the way you perceive it?
34. Magda #4 (1989)
Oil on poplar wood, 30 x 21”
Private collection
Sometimes called “Devotion” by critics, this nude is the earliest extant work featuring Magda Ridley Meszaros (1963–2023), Latimer’s favorite model and later her wife. The lushness of the flesh and the rosiness of the skin are reminiscent of Renoir’s paintings of Aline Charigot (See, e.g., The Large Bathers (1887) (Fig. 8)). Latimer maintains microscopic hyperrealism even as she employs radiating brushstrokes which emanate from the model, as if Meszaros is the source of reality itself.
Discussion questions:
a. The materials and dimensions of this painting duplicate those of Da Vinci’s La Gioconda (c. 1503–1519) (Fig. 17). Is this merely a compositional joke or homage by Latimer? How does it change the way you see the painting?
b. Most biographers agree that Latimer and Meszaros were already lovers by the time this work was completed. Is this apparent from the composition or technique? From the pose of the model? As you proceed through the exhibit, note similarities and differences between this and other portrayals of Meszaros over the next 34 years.
48. Conjuring (1993)
Acrylic on masonite, 48 x 96”
Private collection
Her largest composition and only known landscape, Conjuring appeared during a fallow period in Latimer’s work. In 1992 and 1993 she completed only three paintings.
The scene is an overcast day in a valley in northern New Hampshire. Although it is summer, the foliage on the hills contains much grey and purple, conveying a wintery feel. While Latimer renders exacting details in rocks, trees, even blades of grass, in this work she also employs a forced monotony in the brushwork; the shape of every stroke is practically identical to every other.
In the precise center of the composition, wearing baggy khaki clothing, Magda Ridley Meszaros walks along an empty dirt road, recognizable only under a magnifying lens. She does not appear to be aware of the artist.
Discussion questions:
a. The aforementioned slack period in Latimer’s work coincided with several crises in her life: her only interval of estrangement from Magda Meszaros, precipitated by parental opposition to their relationship; the death by drug overdose of her close friend, the singer Pamela Enoch (196
5–1993); and Latimer’s own life-threatening illness. Her hyperrealist period ends with this painting. Can we see these life crises in this composition? Is there any hint of Latimer’s coming change in style?
49. Performance (1994)
Acrylic on canvas, 32 x 41”
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
Generally regarded as one of the outstanding memorial portraits of the 20th century, Performance is also the first painting of Latimer’s “highlight” period, which occupied the rest of her career.
Latimer was fascinated by the restoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1980–1994), which sharply enhanced the clarity and brightness of Michelangelo’s colors. Although some still doubt whether the restoration reflected the artist’s intentions, Latimer was most interested in the side-by-side contrast between the pre- and post-restoration appearance of the frescoes (See “before” and “after” pictures of The Creation of Adam (figs. 11 and 12)). In one of her diaries, she wrote:
They stripped away the hurts and filth of five centuries and released the purity within. It’s like looking at one of the Platonic forms—beneath the battered, mundane person, the person we see in everyday life, is the true person—the soul, maybe, or the heart. Of course it looks less “real” to us—we’re so used to the violence and degradation imposed on us by the world that we’re unprepared for ourselves without it.
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 to 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?
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?
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?
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?
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 A
lger 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 painting and the others in which she appears?
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.