George Tooker, 1920-2011.

I go to art museums with some regularity, but I'll be the first to admit I had never heard of George Tooker, whose obituary ran in yesterday's "The New York Times." It was their headline that caught me "Painter Capturing Modern Anxieties." You can read the death notice and see a slide show of Tooker here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/arts/design/george-tooker-painter-capturing-modern-anxieties-dies-at-90.html?hpw

The Times said his painting's "haunting images of trapped clerical workers and forbidding government offices expressed a peculiarly 20th-century brand of anxiety and alienation."

I think that's something most people--and certainly most of us in advertising--can relate to.