1940
oil on canvas
w 22" x h 25"
Gift of the T. B. Walker Foundation, Gilbert M. Walker Fund, 1948
"This is Walker's picture and again one of my absolute favorites. this is Office At Night. Painted 1940s. Boy what a wonderful picture this is. Hopper wrote down in his ledger that it ought to be called "confidentially yours," and he also said that this woman's name was Shirley. And she's Shirley to me. Ah, this is an almost Alfred Hitchcockian picture isn't it? I think about this, and I think of that scene in Psycho where Janet Leigh is in her office and is going to go off and meet her doom."Look at the way he's mated the man and the desk. The same squarish forms and shapes. Man=desktop. Head of man=lamp. Then's he's married in some evil way this filing cabinet (with) all its potential inside with the divine Shirley as the same shape. And then the nexus, what comes between them. Here it is: Shirley has spotted a piece of paper on the floor. Now will Shirley bend over to pick that piece of paper up, thereby establishing a relationship--if she bends over to pick up that piece of paper, you can just imagine what's going to happen next. It's going to be an explosion of passion, but will Shirley bend over to pick that piece of paper up? There's certainly no indication of it is there, yet ah, yet something is rustling that shade, something yearning--wanting--passion--disturbs the geometry of the office a mysterious light wafts into the office and links Shirley and himself. A mysterious breeze rustles ever so slightly the shade. Ah, what will occur?"--KAM