Jess, If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink

by and

Jess (Burgess Franklin Collins), If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink, 1962, oil on canvas, 96.5 x 142.2 cm (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) © estate of the artist

Additional resources

See this painting at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Read more about Jess (Burgess Franklin Collins) from FAMSF

Read about the circle of poets, writers, and artists surrounding Jess

Learn about the Cold War and 1950s anxieties about the Atomic age

Learn more about the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb and explore primary sources about it

Read more about the life of Robert Oppenheimer and nuclear technology after WWII

Listen to oral histories by people involved with the Manhattan Project

Explore the construction of the Hanford and the people who were displaced in the process

Read about the Hanford Site today

Explore the 17th-century book that inspired the title of this painting

Cite this page as: Emma Acker at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Dr. Beth Harris, "Jess, If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink," in Smarthistory, March 22, 2019, accessed November 30, 2023, https://smarthistory.org/jess-all-the-world/.