Listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.
—  e e cummings 

Birthday of American poet E.E.Cummings, who also did some painting :) I like his landscapes the best but also some portraits, including self portrait with a notebook and the portrait of his mother that I am sharing. In 1926, when he was 32, his parents had a car accident, in which his father had tragically lost his life. His mother however survived. This is how he described in a lecture given at Harvard 25 years after :

A locomotive cut the car in half, killing my father instantly. When two brakemen jumped from the halted train, they saw a woman standing – dazed but erect – beside a mangled machine; with blood spouting (as the older said to me) out of her head. One of her hands (the younger added) kept feeling her dress, as if trying to discover why it was wet. These men took my sixty-six year old mother by the arms and tried to lead her toward a nearby farmhouse; but she threw them off, strode straight to my father’s body, and directed a group of scared spectators to cover him. When this had been done (and only then) she let them lead her away.
from - i: six nonlectures series

Read about his paintings and see them here :http://www.eecummingsart.com/prosp/?p=1