Series Man in a museum

Three white plaster casts of antique sculpture occupy a shallow museum niche: a standing nude youth with both arms stretched forward, a seated nude figure bent over one raised knee, and a fragment of a bearded male head beside a sliver of fluted column. Each figure rests on its own pedestal -- a pale wooden block, a mottled stone plinth, and a dark maroon base -- staggered in depth across the composition.

The pale grey modeling of the casts, built up in smooth, blended strokes, sits against a densely worked crimson wall dabbed and scumbled into a mottled, almost velvet texture. The contrast between cool, matte plaster and hot, textured red gives the scene a hushed, contemplative charge typical of a study hall lined with copies of ancient statuary.