In the summer of 1981, John Winslow—already an acknowledged master of illusionist realism—recorded on canvas an imaginary studio visit from Allen Tate, the fabled southern poet. The scene is one of quiet intensity, convincing in every respect. Tate, cocktail in hand, stands expectantly just inside a doorway in his khaki-colored three-button suit. Natural light from falls unevenly on the floorboards, walls, picture frames, and books that fill the composition with ordered clutter.The space recedes through a rear doorway into a darkly shadowed interior. One discerns paintings propped here and there, and easels, and rectangles of bright light from rear windows. Nothing disturbs the picture’s perfect poise, except perhaps the fact that the visit was not real in the customary sense of the word. Tate had died, with much acclaim, two years previously.