As World War II broke out in Europe, he and his bride Virginia, settled on living on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The impression was tremendous.

Here he had an opportunity to escape the materialistic world a la Gauguin, and begin to discover the myriad possibilities within himself and in his paintings.

Short of financial resources, they relied on their own ability to build a thatched-hut and their own furniture.

Coconut Tree, 1941

Sugar Mill, 1941

Themes

In most of the watercolors and oils he dealt objectively with varied subjects from natives climbing coconut tree to a copper mine. Yet he simplified the objects by omitting all extraneous detail that would detract from its essential quality, and combined them to form an exciting design.

His stress on design no longer required a model from nature. Inside his studio he planned his own composition in an effort to capture the spirit of the island. He also experimented with applying only close color harmonies of gray-greens or soft red and browns pricked with touches of brilliant red.

The humanist expression in this tranquil setting was man in harmony with nature and with an "optimistic awareness of a closed, intelligible and ordered universe." His composition was partially based upon the Renaissance formal domain of beauty regulated by algebraic equations and platonic notions of harmony. The artist assumes the god-like role of creator whose concept of beauty is an aesthetic experience based upon pure mathematical ratios of order like the "golden measure." The composition was enriched with the oriental pattern of black and white values of Notan.