This is a mysterious painting, but the title gives us great clues about what he was wanting to express. In "Yesterday and Tomorrow" Bartow presents his interest in our origin and future and how to live now. He considered himself in the river of humans connected back to the dawn of inspiration, to the first artist who put pigment on the wall or sang out loud, to the artist across the globe concurrently working on similar themes, and our decendents to come. Bartow made a series of wood sculpture with a pattern he called "Moon and Tides" inspired by the sand ripples formed by shoreline tides. He likened the movement of the tides and the repeated linear sand ripples to generations of family past, present and future.

In this painting the central figure, a man (self portrait?) is wearing a tall red hat with two eye holes. What could the function of this hat be? The man is addressed by a detailed face with an open mouth, and on the right a ghost-like apparition.