American Art Collaborative

This small oval image recalls the format of traditional miniature paintings but, instead of a portrait, shows an abstract composition of squares and rectangles. The curved border appears to contain the shapes within, as if they might drift apart on a larger canvas. Unlike many abstract artists who concentrated on the surface of the canvas, Albert Eugene Gallatin suggested a certain amount of depth by layering the colored squares, rectangles, and triangles so that the viewer’s eyes try to determine which shapes are on top of the “pile” and which are underneath