The Displaced Missle
Artist
Kenneth Southworth Davies
(b. 1925)
Date1958
MediumOil on board
Dimensions30 x 31 in.
ClassificationsOil Painting
Credit LineGift of the artist
Object number2010.22LIC
DescriptionThis illustration accompanied a short story by Jacob Hay entitled “The Displaced Missile,” published in the September 6, 1958 issue of “The Saturday Evening Post”. In the fictional story, a missile is presumably lost at sea only to be discovered in the middle of Continental Square in the small town of Dexter, Pennsylvania. Interestingly, Davies’s depiction of the square was likely inspired by the downtown buildings of New Haven, a city in his native Connecticut. Mike Brewer, a character with “horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the sun” is perched atop the extended fire truck’s ladder. The crumpled “No Parking Anytime” sign at the front left corner of the foreground is ironic in the face of the monstrous missile oozing oil in the streets of Dexter. Despite the immediacy of the crisis and the ever-present threat of conflict in the post-World War II American society that it implies, the scene still contains elements of absurdity and Davies’s humorous wit.
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