Lou Posner: The Interface Between Life and Art
Abandoned II depicts an old country general store surrounded by tourist cabins, the forerunners of modern motels, along State Route 62 between State Highway 37 and Possum Junction, Indiana.
Posner also painted these buildings from a different perspective in Abandoned I, originally titled Shady Curve. For Abandoned II, he worked from pencil sketches made after the buildings had been abandoned.
Posner called attention to his use of hatching and the “ennobling of what really were humble, run-down structures.” Through his treatment of these ordinary roadside buildings, he gave them a dignity that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
About a year after the painting was completed, the main building and several others burned to the ground.
Abandoned II is in the permanent collection of the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art in Owensboro, Kentucky.