
George Tooker
Artist George Tooker was materially involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, he travelled to Alabama to take part in one of the pivotal Selma to Montgomery marches with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this double portrait, made seven years after that march, Tooker depicts two wide-eyed and engaged figures on separate sides of a wall--each speculating who the other is. Upon closer examination, we see that these individuals are doppelgängers. The artwork stresses the importance of how similar we all are as human beings, and the mutual anxiousness we experience when we let barriers enhance our feelings of difference. The work further speaks to the need for communication and active listening to surmount said barriers.