[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S14783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO GEORGE TOOKER

 Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to acknowledge the lifetime 
work of the artist George Tooker. Earlier this month, President Bush 
presented him with the National Medal of Arts, our Nation's highest and 
most prestigious award for artistic excellence.
  George Tooker, born in New York City, is a resident of Hartland, VT. 
After studying English literature at Harvard and then studying painting 
at the Art Students League of New York, he found a world of modern 
possibilities in the medieval and Renaissance medium of egg tempera, 
helping to begin a revitalization of that technique. The choice of egg 
tempera gave his paintings an archaic and otherworldly feel, creating 
wonderfully rich juxtapositions as Tooker often used contemporary 
subjects and circumstances as the theme of his work. For instance, many 
of his paintings convey images of modernity and alienation while using 
colors, surface finishes, and techniques that hearken back to the long 
tradition of art history. But they do more, of course; the reference to 
that long tradition of culture foregrounds the current manifestations 
of that culture, which George Tooker addresses as his subject.
  Although some have seen elements of fantasy in his paintings, George 
Tooker has been explicit; he seeks not an escape into a dream world 
but, rather, the creation of a new approach to realism. ``I am after 
painting reality impressed on the mind so hard that it returns as a 
dream, but I am not after painting dreams as such, or fantasy,'' he 
once said.
  His haunting works often highlight the increased social isolation 
that has accompanied the pressures of modernization on everyday life. 
He deals with society and its very real consequences; although many of 
his paintings retain a magical and stylized feel, at their heart are 
images that have the capacity to reveal and reflect many of the deepest 
feelings each viewer of Tooker's work encounters in his or her own life 
in the contemporary world.
  I commend Mr. George Tooker for his important contributions to 
American art and congratulate him on receiving the National Medal of 
Arts. We in Vermont are proud of his accomplishment.

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