While visiting the Chicago World’s Fair, Jane Peterson was introduced to art school, although she was already a gifted intuitive who could paint anything she saw. Ms. Peterson then pursued the study of painting and blended various styles for a collection now displayed in part in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other fine museums. In Untitled/Sailboat, soothing impressionist strokes and minimal coloring expand a seemingly simple theme into a playful masterpiece of illumined delight, with a touch of cotton-candy-sweet serenity.

 

A wee bit of imagination transforms Jane’s prominent sailboat into the night ship of Wynken, Blynken and Nod. Between the many versions of the book and song, based on the poem by Eugene Field,  children have enjoyed this fantasy of a flying shoe for 130 years.