Composition with Still Life is a painting by the American artist Edwin Dickinson (1891–1978). Begun in 1933 and completed in 1937, it is Dickinson's largest work. Painted in oil on canvas and nearly monochromatic, the allegorical composition depicts two headless nudes in a mysterious setting amid still life elements. The painting is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. History In November 1933 Dickinson decided to put aside his large painting Woodland Scene, which he had been unable to bring to a satisfactory resolution, and began a new painting—his largest—that he eventually gave the neutral name of Composition with Still Life. Adopting a more systematic method of painting than he had used previously, he began by mixing batches of paints in incremental values, evidently limited saturation, and with the darkest value considerably higher in key than in his darker, earlier pictures, a method that he employed in Stranded Brig as well. Work progressed steadily in 1934, except for the period Dickinson worked on Stranded Brig, followed by a hospitalization for back pain and ulcers, and for two months at the beginning of 1935, when he finished up work on Woodland Scene at the request of his patron, Esther Hoyt Sawyer. Despite teaching painting classes at the Art Institute of Buffalo in the fall of 1934 and the following spring, Dickinson, with the use of Esther's painting studio, managed 216 sittings by June 16, 1935. But eleven days later, on the family's return to Provincetown, police stopped them to inform them that Edwin's eldest brother, Howard, had been murdered in Detroit. Howard's death hit him hard, and he ceased work on the painting. Although he made some attempts to resume work on the painting, and despite his keen awareness of the importance to his career of completing the painting swiftly and well, it was not until May 1936 that he resumed steady work on it. From then on, he worked at it fairly steadily, despite a few interruptions, until March 14, 1937, when the sittings numbered 396. Nineteen sittings were done beginning June 27 and then a long break until September 20, after which, in a flurry of activity, he added another fifty sittings. He painted the final object in his picture, a pale blue rose, between October 30 and November 1, on which day he wrote in his journal that the picture was done. Analysis