Focus on Public Sale (painting) and analyze the Reception.
Ken Johnson of The New York Times singled the painting out as unusual in Wyeth's oeuvre because it "evinces social consciousness", something that otherwise is absent from the artist's works and makes him different from his contemporary Norman Rockwell. Johnson, reviewing a Wyeth exhibition in 2006, likened Public Sale to "an understated Thomas Hart Benton painting".
Thomas Hart Benton Ken Johnson The New York Times Norman Rockwell