The most startling work in the entire collection in terms of its departure from everything else Sidney made — a tall narrow ink painting in the East Asian brush painting tradition, executed with evident understanding of that tradition's techniques and aesthetic principles. Two bamboo stalks, painted in graduated gray-black wash with the characteristic segmented structure of bamboo, rise from the lower left toward the upper edge of the composition. The segments are rendered with the specific technique of Chinese ink painting — a single loaded brushstroke for each segment, the ink lighter at center and darker at the edges, the joins between segments marked with darker ink.
Between and beside the bamboo, smaller plants and leaves are indicated with brief black marks — some calligraphic, some more descriptive — that have the quality of brushwork studied from classical East Asian models. The overall lightness of the composition, the use of white paper as positive space, the restrained palette of ink gray and black with the single warm note of the sun — all of this is classical.
That single warm note is the work's decisive element: at center-right, a circle of orange-yellow watercolor — the sun or moon — sits between the bamboo stalks with the simplicity of a haiku. It is the only color in the composition. Its warmth against the cool ink grays and the white paper creates a relationship of extraordinary elegance.
Why did Sidney make this work? It represents a completely different training or influence from everything else in the collection. It is technically accomplished — not a first attempt but the work of someone who spent time learning this tradition. A genuine mystery and a remarkable outlier.