Pie in the Sky 1947

Curator: Here we have Ralph Fasanella's 1947 painting, "Pie in the Sky," rendered with oil on canvas. What are your first thoughts? Editor: Crowded! It’s almost claustrophobic, with this vertiginous perspective plunging you down into the urban depths, yet also oddly dreamlike. Curator: The painting embodies elements of social realism and certainly captures that post-war feeling of urban density. Note how Fasanella utilizes a bird's-eye view. In that elevated position, one can absorb and process this almost dizzying architectural space. But there’s more going on above the cityscape too, isn't there? Editor: Right. This layer floats like a hazy memory, echoing the aspirations, maybe religious hopes, and homely comfort—a church, a house—all set against this almost mythical cloudscape. What a striking contrast against the dense reality below! Curator: Fasanella himself, an artist deeply committed to social justice, was highly influenced by his own working-class background. You see glimpses into individual lives right in the buildings—snapshots of everyday existence. Editor: Yes, there’s something both hopeful and melancholy about it. All those lit windows – are they beacons of dreams? Also, that enormous advert on the side of a building – for whiskey? The juxtaposition is…well, darkly comical, isn’t it? Curator: The advertisement certainly reflects a society steeped in consumerism, perhaps hinting at the illusory promises of material wealth. And that rooster! It has connotations of the working class, of vigilance and being the first to face the dawn. Editor: He is stunning, yes, proud. This canvas feels very…personal somehow, raw. Not academically refined, more like a vivid emotional map of a city's soul. Curator: I concur. Fasanella was after conveying lived experience more than adhering to academic convention, as evident with his almost folk art approach, something in the style of Ashcan realism. His legacy offers powerful commentary on the human condition. Editor: It’s stayed with me, this city crammed between aspiration and…reality. Like so many stories crammed together on a single canvas. Thanks for pulling back the layers, made me really see things there that escaped me initially.