Cranky Coworker Day

In a funk? Don't hide it! Today crankiness at work is actually encouraged.

If Richard Merkin's characters look as if they are having a bad day, that is okay. They are just celebrating Cranky Coworker Day.

In paintings, assemblages, and collages, Merkin conjures popular scenes from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, choosing subjects—from the Cotton Club to Mickey Mouse to Luna Park—that are witty, often eccentric, combinations of movie stars, sports heroes, and personal references. Although there is a realistic basis behind his themes, Merkin avoids descriptive handling of his subjects; instead, through cutout shapes and overlays of paint and line, he works toward formal balances and juxtapositions that belie the humor of his titles.

Source: Virginia M. Mecklenburg. Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1987).

Pictured: Richard Merkin, born 1938, Madame Bricktop Sees Saint Martin Go through the Room, 1972, tempera on paper mounted on fiberboard, 48 x 72 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation.