Grandma's Parlor

Grandma’s Parlor captures every grownup’s discovery that the not-to-be-touched rooms of their childhood—those objects meant only for show—aren’t so formidable after all. Here the two pitchers prepare to dance, and the lamp, as Gág put it, resembles “a gosling poising its ridiculous wings for flight.” Yet the dramatic shadows indicate that this room at her grandmother’s Minnesota farmhouse may hold some residual terror still. The six figures in the scene may represent Gág’s six younger siblings.