Ted Halkin’s early works were highly-symbolic, id-driven reflections of his influences and love of archetypal imagery. He became associated with a post-war group of Chicago artists known as “The Monster Roster” for their collective expressionistic, existential nod to antiquity such as Cosmo Campoli, Dominic Di Meo, Leon Golub, Seymour Rososfky, and Nancy Spero.

Always restless, Halkin never felt satisfied sticking to a single style or a narrow range of artistic concerns, always exploring new ways to express his vision and make himself anew. Here in grand scale, Halkin pays homage to still-life and abstraction with a cubistic twist that becomes a kind of altarpiece to painting’s overarching developments of the 20th century.