Introducing Miss America 1947

In 1949, Steve Wheeler made this image, 'Introducing Miss America' with what looks like gouache or maybe screen printing. The dominant colors are pink, red, and black, creating a lively, agitated surface. I can imagine Wheeler hunched over this ovoid shape, maybe a piece of discarded plywood, trying to figure out how all these lines and shapes could fit together. There’s an amazing tension between the flat, graphic elements and the sense of depth, as if he was digging into the picture plane. Look at the interplay between the geometric shapes and the more organic, blob-like forms – it’s like a visual puzzle that keeps shifting as you look at it. It makes me think about other artists working around the same time, like Lee Krasner, who was also pushing the boundaries of abstraction and figuration. These artists are all in conversation with each other, responding to the world around them and trying to make sense of it through paint. It’s a reminder that painting is always a process of discovery.