Mockingbird Museum Tour

Went with sister to the M Inst. of Art (Mia) yesterday, inspired by Mia's book-themed art tours, to look for a chifforobe as mentioned in To Kill a Mockingbird (TKM).
There were none, as such!
Lots of floor chests and some standing wardrobes with shelves--makes me think people folded clothes more than hung them? Also of course didn't own as many clothes as we do.

The closest to a chifforobe was a pair of early-1700s (Ming dynasty) Chinese wardrobes with hat boxes on top. A sign noted clothes were folded and laid flat in it.

Here I am, fuzzy, in front of them--wearing a mask because I'm still coughing.
(I called the nurse line this morning--probably need antibiotics--have a doctor's appt on Monday morning--soonest available.)

I was feeling perky though, so sister and I wandered through the paintings as well as furniture. She was looking for 2D representations of possible chifferobes; I was scanning for anything that reminded me of TKM, which I'd finished the night before.

BELOW: This one jumped out at me from across the room: "It's Dill!"
Dill, center in cap, in  Florence, 1961, having blown the popcorn stand of small town Alabama. He was nine in 1935 at the end of the book--so here, painted in a cap by Mimi Gross, he'd be 35. (more info from Mia)

(I was influenced by knowing that in real life, Dill was Truman Capote.)

BELOW: Meanwhile Scout has moved to NYC (as she does in Go Set a Watchman--and Harper Lee did in real life)--painted here, looking tense, by Alice Neel, 1958.

The above portrait is actually "Christy White". It also reminds me of the little sister Millie, "the smart one", in William Inge's Picnic who declared she was blowing the popcorn stand of small town Kansas for NYC.

BELOW: From the same time period as the two above, here, I imagine, is the youngest of  Tom Robinson's three children, grown—“Frankie", painted by Joe Solman. [more info from Mia]

 BELOW: "I pick for Link Deas", Tom Robinson says on the witness stand--meaning his job during harvestime is picking cotton.
As painted by Clementine Hunter in 1950s Louisiana, "Picking Cotton" still looks like slave days. [more from MIA]
Cotton is mechanically harvested today.

BELOW: Detail from Atticus's Office. 

He's a lawyer--we never enter his office in TKM, but we’re told it’s above the bank building in the town square.
This office set up at Mia is from 1954, so 19 years after TKM, but has the right feel, I think.

This, above, is actually part of a wonderful fiction--a made-up "period room" (with real vintage objects though), with a whole backstory about a mysterious curator who  disappeared in 1954 and his supposed office was sealed over...
Very Meow Wolf.
More here--Mark Dion's "Curators Office"

BELOW: Scout's brother Jem has a box where he keeps the toys they find in a hollow tree outside Boo Radley's house.
This toy box of Noah's animals, though it's Victorian, a box of treasures feels perennial.

I was more influenced here by the movie of TKM than by the book—the movie opens with a child’s hand picking the objects out of the box. 

The detail here is in the corner of Millais's large painting "Peace Concluded" (1856). {more at mia}
The little girl holds a dove (not visible here), and there's another painted on the lid of the ark.
Is that a mockingbird remaining in the box?

BELOW: The final act of TKM happens on Halloween night, 1935--Scout is trapped in the ham costume she wore for an pageant of local products.
Here I am with sister in front of "Halloween", painted by Clara Gardner Mairs, c. 1920. At Mia: collections.artsmia.org/art/17128/halloween-clara-gardner-mairs)