Lawrence Gipe draws on images that brought comfort and faith during two World Wars and a massive depression. Pictures that promised a Utopian future made safe by modern advances in industrialization. The artist 's view is postmodern, ironic, and ambivalent. It comes with the wisdom of hindsight, knowledge of the now, and trepidation for the new century now upon us.

In this suite, Gipe has relinquished the use of words. Here are speeding trains, massive gears and great cities in combination with those biggest of American 20th Century portraits, Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt, from Mount Rushmore.

The artist's heroic rendering and intense palette indicate his own difficulty in releasing the promise of the twentieth century. These are images we hold dearly, which we now view with a mixture of pride, longing and critical analysis. They are a unique visual essay on our historic heritage.

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