Coleman’s allegorical figure studies, executed in watercolors, are somewhat reminiscent of Max Weber’s Chassidic paintings (albeit, locked in the cubist architecture of John Marin). The scale is large for the medium, and Coleman’s color is pale, greyish, and tonally chromatic rather than dynamic. His pen and ink drawings fare somewhat better, being less pretentious. If there is an individual stamp in these works, it is in the prismatic form that reflected light takes, while imposing itself onto the more or less naturalistic figures in genre settings. Studio after Dark is among the most successful.

—Arthur Secunda