For this first panel of the polyptych, Sharrer mined the photographic archives at the New York Public Library. She befriended the librarians, and spent most of her time poring over photographs taken by photographers Russell Lee and John Vachon, under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration. This photograph of a concession stand at a country fair could very well have been an inspiration for the painting. The outdoor lights that run along the top of the photograph mimic those that run along the top of Sharrer’s Country Fair.
(Russell Lee, photographer, November 1938. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection LC-USF33-011750-M2 DLC)

This stout country woman, featured in another Farm Security Administration photograph, proudly displays her wares: rows and rows of food preserves. In Sharrer’s painting, the central figure is similar is physical appearance and demeanor. Preserves of varying types and sizes also occupy a focal point in the painting. The preservation of homegrown fruits and vegetables represented the farm family’s independence: they could preserve food for their own use, and also sell them at local fairs, thus achieving greater financial independence.
(Arthur Rothstein, photographer, October 1939. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection LC-USF34-028608-D DLC)

William McKenzie, another neighbor of Sharrer’s, is the figure in the rocking chair, puffing on a pipe. Sharrer posed neighbors and friends, and photographed them with her 35mm Rolleiflex camera.

Sharrer’s neighbors, Esther and William McKenzie, who lived at 130 Bank Street in New York City’s West Village, posed for In the Parlor. Esther, pretending to hang clothes on the line, is the woman at the center of the painting.

To attain the perfect pose for the teenage boy in In the Parlor, Sharrer had her husband, Perez Zagorin, dress in casual clothes and assume various positions. Using Perez as a model became part of the artist’s creative process for many years to come.

With his buttoned-up shirt, hat and jacket, this gentleman is dressed in his Sunday best. Sharrer noted, "Most people, when I asked them to pose, wanted naturally to abandon their gingham aprons, get out of their run-over bedroom slippers and take off their hair curlers."

This man, who looks directly out of the picture plane, was also photographed by Sharrer, at a factory near Amherst, Massachusetts.

Bill McIntosh, of Amherst, Massachusetts, was not a factory worked but rather the local tailor and grocer. Sharrer photographed him time and time again. Of him she said, "He never really understood why I thought his face was interesting. His keen eyes weighed my sophisticated curiosity."

This figure has his back to the viewer, in a relaxed stance. Another photograph taken by Sharrer at a factory near Amherst, Massachusetts.

Sharrer took over 400 documentary photographs and made numerous sketches in the preparatory stages of this painting. This was necessary, in her words, "to authenticate the people." Sharrer painted this man in meticulous detail: the overalls, cap, and glasses are rendered almost exactly as they are in the source photograph.

Sharrer photographed this country woman sniffing her apron and painted her into Farm Scene. In the painting, the figure is completely detached from the rest of the figures (as they are from each other) and looks out of the picture plane.

About this photograph, the artist said: "This is also a study for the figure of the girl leaning on the chicken brooder...in this photograph I came closer to the thin grace that I wanted." Similar photographs of other individuals in the same pose also found in the collection show that Sharrer was searching for a particular quality in the people she photographed--she kept looking, and photographing, until the precise quality she required for the painting was found.

To paint this boy on horseback holding a freshly-killed rabbit, Sharrer asked children on the street near her New York City apartment to pose for her.

The lengths Sharrer went to prepare for the polyptych - traveling to the countryside near New York, posing and photographing her family and friends, and dutifully combing magazines and newspapers for source material - became her modus operandi throughout her career. Source materials with direct links to the polyptych are found in the collection, as in the photographs of a schoolteacher (which Sharrer confirms through her captioning), a country woman sniffing her apron, and a young boy seated in a chair.

This young boy, wearing an aviator cap and holding up a drawing for all to see, directly confronts the viewer with his stark gaze. Sharrer transferred this same stare into the Public School panel.

The lengths Sharrer went to prepare for the polyptych--traveling the countryside near her home, posing and photographing her family and friends, and dutifully combing magazines and newspapers for source material--became her modus operandi throughout her career. Years later, Sharrer wrote about this photograph: "This woman is posing for the teacher in the Public School Scene. To find the right woman, I waited outside the Dollar Store in Amherst, Mass.--and by and by she sauntered out. I used this woman’s curled hair in a net and one of her hands, but her face was too understanding. What I wanted was a face that would represent the gap between the children’s imaginative and fluid ways and a teacher’s dyed-in-the-wool character. The limitation of her artistic nature is represented in the painting by the Victorian, hand-painted vase. She is nevertheless very kind to the children."

This photograph of two young girls embracing was unmistakably the inspiration for the pair in the school scene of the polyptych. Sharrer explains this in her own words in the caption that accompanies the photograph, revealing that she had to try different pairs of children in order to get the "right feeling."