From an interview with Vivian Berman, recorded in a 2.15.2001 essay: “I did this after a picture on the cover of Time Magazine.” ES describes her style as “Abstract Surrealist” while looking at this work. “Although concise and flatly painted, the abstractions of Esphyr Slobodkina have a drama that arises from subtle use of opaque color and an intricacy of spatial effects. This drama – much of it that of the mechanical in the modern world – is evident in Turboprop Sky Shark where dynamic tensions are created by an overlapping and interweaving of inventive shapes” ( Review from The Art Digest, March 15, 1951, quoted in Notes for a Biographer, Volume II, p.476). Slobodkina notes that “this thing is constructed just like an airplane. There’s a body, there’s a wing structure…I don’t believe in this Kandinsky floating stuff. I’m not a ghost…I’m still building structures…I’m very architectonic” (Slobodkina Interview, March 26, 1994, Tape II, Side I).