“The work was done to announce (for me, for us) the pregnancy of my wife Anne. I had had a vasectomy for 8 years and had it successfully reversed. Thinking of the Van Eyck, Marriage of Arnolfini, I put as the dog, our beloved Kaethe (who was to have to cope with a child cometing for affection) “found her way into the foreground”. I related it to annunciation pictures with a dove at the top of the picture. Kaethe became for me “our” angel (perhaps I should note my ability to create a personal narrative here …. I am not Christian and know Christian symbolism from a life-long study of art). When our son was born 13 weeks premature, initially ill and had a harrowing hospital stay, my focus on him, on the drawings I was piling up of his hospital course. I could not finish this Annunciation pastel until 1985 upon the urging of Elizabeth Haff, Curator of the Brockton Museum of Art, Massachusetts, as she wanted to show it in a show at that museum of Four N.E. Contemporary Draftsmen.”