The Whole Town

Zoltan Sepeshy emigrated to Detroit, MI from Hungary in 1921, where his style was heavily influenced by the Midwestern regionalist landscape. In The Whole Town Sepeshy paints the nucleus of a modest small town. As the title suggests, however, we are seeing the town in its entirety, unoccupied by townsfolk and unbothered by the bustle of city life.

Throughout his long career, critics received Sepeshy's work as both sophisticated modern abstraction and dull regionalism. He used his writings as a platform to justify the quality of his work, detailing his methodical technique, decisive plan, and lack of impulse. The superb colorist extended the chromatic and tonal range of tempera painting by applying paint in thin lines, a process which resulted in an impeccably even surface.