“If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.” Often the measure of greatness (as Wilde well knew) is how much later than sooner the truth is found out. So it is with Pavel Thelitchew1 (1898–1957) and with his most important canvas, Hide-and-Seek2—a work whose stirring hidden truths escape the many viewers who are, perhaps unknowingly, content to play but a superficial visual version of hide-and-seek. After a quick bow to the historically curious, we shall briefly probe the personality of the artist in order to enter more deeply into the real world of Hide-and-Seek. Ours will be a serious game, and it carries one warning: seek, and it may be that ye shall hide.