The Vine: October 9, 2009
Hi, Sars (and readers!),
This is actually my second Vine-y missive, but this is a much more practical concern. Well, sort of. The thing is, there’s this painting that I’m trying to find. I first encountered it in the seventh or eighth grade in an English textbook (this would have been eight or nine years ago, but the textbook itself was much older, probably from the early nineties).
I could have sworn it was called Thunderhead and it featured a gathering storm on what appeared to be a prairie or maybe just a big lawn. There might have been a farmhouse in it as well. And there was the small figure of a woman, facing away from the viewer and looking into the storm. She had red or brown hair and, I think, a red dress.
I was really struck by the painting and I remember going home and Googling the artist. I found a lot of his stuff online hosted either by a university or a museum. I want to say that he was dead and most of his work had been produced in the fifties, but that may be wrong. A lot of his paintings featured the woman-with-her-back-to-us construction and I thought most of them were merely okay.
For some reason, the painting has always stuck with me and a couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to try to get a print if I could find one. But I couldn’t. In the intervening years, I had totally forgotten the artist’s name and though I tried Googling everything I remembered about the painting, I couldn’t seem to get anywhere. I was hoping that your readers could work some of their magic and help me out.
If it helps, I want to say that the painting was done in 1954 or 1956, but I’m not too certain about that.I remember that the painter was male, and at the time I assumed he was American (that may or may not be true, but his work did have a kind of rustic Americana feel to it, especially the painting I’m looking for. Kind of like something you’d see on the wall of a Ponderosa. But in a good way). I’ve tried looking for the textbook as well, but it was just one of those generic English anthologies, all I remember about it is that it was dark blue. If anyone can help me solve this mystery, I would be so grateful, it’s been driving me up a wall.
A (Would Be) Patron Of The Arts
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
Hmm… My first thought was “Christina’s World,” by Andrew Wyeth, but I’m not sure if that really fits the bill.
http://davetroy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/christinas_world.jpg
Andrew Wyeth?
not sure why but I thinking this might be one of the Wyeths? Andrew or one of the rest of the clan. . .
I know it doesn’t fit all the criteria, but your description really reminds me of Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina's_World
The first time I try to help out on one of The Vine questions, and my link is broken. *sigh*
That sounds like Wyeth, just from the description. I can’t find the picture in a cursory google search, but he was a big “landscape+woman’s back” guy, as in Christina’s World or some of the Helga pictures
I immediately thought of “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina%27s_World
But re-reading your description, I don’t think that is it. However, either Andrew Wyeth or N.C. Wyeth might be the artist you are looking for…
It’s like a game show: “I can name that painting in six minutes!” TN is awesome in so many ways.
(Christina’s world was the painting I immediately thought of too.)
Could you be thinking of Harvey Dunn? A lot of his work is hosted at the SD Art Museum on the campus of South Dakota State University. He’s got two stormy paintings that I can think of: Storm Front: http://www.madeinsouthdakota.com/Catalog/Product.cfm?shopBy=vendor&vendorId=163&productId=6124 and Just a Few drops of rain http://www.madeinsouthdakota.com/Catalog/Product.cfm?shopBy=vendor&vendorId=163&productId=6118
I thought of Edward Hopper, his Cape Cod stuff, but don’t see anything on a cursory search that’s quite right. Maybe the Nation has it with Wyeth, but check out Hopper, if not.
Team Harvey Dunn! I was going to suggest him, too. (Excuse my native SoDakian exuberance.
If it is “Just a Few Drops of Rain”, you can buy copies here http://www.southdakotaartmuseum.com/shop_dunn.htm.
You might try the artchive (http://www.artchive.com/ftp_site.htm); it’s indexed by artist and by style, so you can click around until something triggers your memory
It’s not the Wyeth (though that is neat-o). And it’s not the Harvey Dunn. I have actually tried the Artchive before, but I have so little information about the painting that it’s difficult to get any results. Edward Hopper actually looks very much like the style I remember. But, looking through the paintings, I’m not seeing anything that I recall either from the original picture or the stuff I looked up afterwards. The style and subject matter is so similar, though, that I expect if the painting I’m looking for isn’t an obscure Edward Hopper, it’s someone who was greatly influenced by him.
@sdpfeiffy and Mary: Yay SoDak! (Harvey Dunn and Terry Redlin are the only two SD artists I can even name, but I used to see them everywhere before I moved away.)
I know nothing about art, but I tried to find the book. Without knowing what kind of literature class, I had little to go on and am almost sure to be completely wrong. I did, however, find a dark blue Norton Anthology of Poetry with a storm-like cloudy picture on it. I can’t find any very good images of it, though, and can’t really tell if there is even a woman in the picture (I know, I know, but like I said–almost certainly wrong). Anyway, here’s the ISBN of the one I found: 0393092402. If you do a Google image search, you can see it; if, by a teeny little chance that’s it, you might be able to get your hands on one (library, English department, or even buy a cheap used copy) to find the credit for the cover art.
@Sheila and Mary: Yay SoDak is right :) After I posted, I realized that HD was probably not at the height of his popularity in the 50s and 60s. oops.
Possibly Hopper’s “Carolina Morning”? It’s 1955, and has the red dress and the prairie, though it doesn’t seem all that stormy (and she’s looking right at us, kind of odd for a Hopper!).
http://tinyurl.com/yhxctnu
Huh, I would have bet on Hopper or Wyeth as well … now I’m really curious to see who the artist does turn out to be!
And I’m still hung up on the writer of this query being less than a decade out of *middle school*, along with the decription of the text book as “much older, probably from the early 90s”. Class of ’78 high school grad here … my SON was born in ’96. When in blazes did I get to be so OLD??? Oy.
Perhaps Grant Wood (he of “American Gothic” fame)? He was working mostly in the 1930s, though, and had passed away by the mid-1940s. His paintings definitely have the rural Americana subject matter.
45, tell me about it. Join me in a drink?
Possibly Grant Wood?
45, I’m so glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who went “older? early 90’s? Augh!”
Some Googling informed me that there’s a painting called “Thunderhead” by Harland Wood, who paints a lot of western scenes. Unfortunately, I can’t find a picture of it anywhere.
I’m only 29, and even I was like, “Even older = early ’90s?!” Yeesh.
“Old” was hearing “Pretty Woman” on the oldies station… and realizing it was Dave Lee Roth’s version. On the MOLDY oldies station. The one I grew up hearing Roy Orbison on. I damn near died right then and there.
Did anyone besides me picture this “old” textbook with a plain dark blue cloth cover and just a title stamped on the front, like it was printed in the days when 4-color process was too extravagant for school books?
Unfortunately I’ve no idea on the painting, but I totally want to see it now.
I did a double take when I read “in the seventh or eighth grade in a textbook, which would have been eight or nine years ago”.
Sigh….Guess I’m getting ol……”Hey!!! You kids!!! Get off my lawn!!” Sorry, where was I?
I wonder if there is a way to check with the school board or even teachers at the school to see if they would have records of the textbooks they were using then?
If you think you’d recognize his name if you saw it, you might try the “Artcyclopedia” — here’s a link to a list of artists who specialized in the American West (just going off the “you might see it in a Ponderosa” clue.)
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/subjects/the_American_West.html
Heh. I didn’t mean to imply that the book was particularly old, I just wanted to give it a general publication time-frame. You’re not old, I’m just a young’un.
It’s not “Carolina Morning” and it’s not Grant Wood. I remember I hadn’t been familiar with the artist before, so I feel like it wasn’t someone who had a big cultural presence like Wood.
If I didn’t remember this so vividly, I’d start thinking maybe I had just imagined all this. But I remember printing off several thumbnails of some of the other paintings that I found. The woman-looking-away thing was a pretty much constant motif. And there were a lot of airy white and blue spaces. The Hopper where the door is opening into gulf-blue is almost exactly like one of the paintings I remember.
Thanks so much for all your suggestions. This is one of those little, seemingly inconsequential mysteries that just seem to always follow you around. At the very least, I’ve discovered some very cool artwork that I hadn’t encountered before.
Perhaps you could try and remember the name of the textbook. Would the school have any information as to what English textbooks they used when you went to there?
I can almost guarantee your middle school HAS the book, even if they’re not teaching from it any more. ESPECIALLY if they’re not teaching from it any more, you might call them and ask for one — I’m certain they’d give you one for, like, $10 or something. Also, if your teacher is still there, s/he will remember the book and be able to get one in your hands (more likely for free than if you call the office). Scope the school’s staff directory email list, shoot him/her a note and you’ll have that book in your hands in 2 weeks. I was an English teacher and I (and my colleagues) would bend over backward to find something like that for a former student.
Heh, I’m only 28 but I was confused by somebody “googling” something they saw in middle school — no internet or search engines for me until late high school, and even then I don’t think Google was popular until I was in college. The time, they are a-changin’ so very fast.
@ Maren – Heh, Google in college? At the risk of going all “well, in MY day” on you … I graduated from college in ’82, and typed all my papers on a *typewriter*. (Anyone else remember popping in correction ribbons??) No computers, period. (Use of an electric typewriter was about as chi-chi as it got back then!) Seriously, it’s amazing – mind -boggling, even – how much technology has changed over 20 or 30 years.
@ Cyntada, Jenn C., and Jen S. – My people! Yep, drinks are on me. In the interest of verisimilitude, I’m going to have to change my screen nick in less than two years (I’m closer to 50 than 45 now!), but I don’t mind being the elder statesman within our little pre-geriatric tribe.
Oh, topic? Contacting the school/teacher is a wonderful idea!! I hope that the OP hits paydirt, and will come back to report in on who this illusive artist actually IS!
@45 is the 30: You aren’t the OLDEST elder statesman here. Anybody else remember being excited about getting NEW books out of the library – copyright 1970s? Anybody else being excited over the awesomeness of the self-correcting IBM Selectric, and hoping you’d get to use the one in the office? Anybody here remember CARBON PAPER?
No?
… Get off my lawn, you durn kids!
Wow – I know this picture! I think it’s a Canadian artist of the Praries. I want to say the group of seven guy who went out west for a few years before coming back, but I’ll need to check. Luckily my aunt is an art teacher and may know. Back with more info soon!
No idea on the painting but I know all about carbon paper. I had a Smith-Corona where you had to pop out the typewriter ribbon and pop in the correcting cartridge, then reverse the process to type again. The whole process was messy and a pain.
And if that ball comes into my yard one more time, I’m keeping it.
For the painting: do the names A.J. Casson or Tom Thomson ring a bell? It seems that both of these Group of Seven artists had paintings called “Thunderhead” or “Thunderheads,” though they were earlier than 1950, and though none of them feature a girl in a dress…
Tom Thomson:
http://tinyurl.com/yfgf7tl
http://tinyurl.com/ylr2x9c
A.J. Casson:
http://tinyurl.com/yzsholr
@La BellaDonna – Oh yes – the IBM Selectric!! With the integrated correction ribbon! Not to mention not having to give yourself carpal tunnel by pounding those d*mn manual typewriter keys.
@ Vanessa – And an emphatic nod of the head to carbon paper, as well. None of those new-fangled “carbonless carbons” for us! (I just explained what carbon paper is – was? – to my son a couple of weeks ago.) Remember when your tests at school were all printed in blue because they were run on the mimeograph machine? The smell of those pages is something I would still remember if I smelled it today, I think.
And here I thought that everyone who reads TN was so much younger and cooler than I am! Well, they may still be cooler, LOL, but I’m very glad to see that I’m not swimming all alone in my little demographic “pond”. Daniel Stern’s voice – a la “The Wonder Years” narration – and he Joe Cocker version of “A Little Help From My Friends” will now likely be going through my brain in peculiar little ear worm all day today.
Plus, I’m learning a lot about some very cool artists in this thread. I love TN!
YES to those new, crackly-spined library books! I practically LIVED in the library as a kid. Lord, I remember when “Go Ask Alice” and “Are You There G-d …” came out. Both new, both highly-controversial.
Correction: Harland Young, not Harland Wood. I don’t know where I got “Wood” from.
This is exciting. I want the mystery solved!
Hey, I typed my papers on an electric typewriter most of the way through high school! Because I was poor, not because it was the latest technology, but still. ;)
It did make me an expert at getting that fiddly little orange reel of correcting ribbon into the typewriter at my old job, though (law offices still use typewriters for stuff like filling out pre-printed forms or adding onto a document someone else printed out).
@Sheila, Mary, and sdpfeiffy: What are the odds that all 4 people from SoDak are Tomato Nationers? :)
@Maren: I used my Brother electric word processor all through college. Also, I remember when I got my first email account and didn’t realize that you needed to tell people the dots (so instead of slane@gwu.edu I was telling people slane@gwuedu).
@45 is the New 30: hey, I actually KNOW HOW to make a mimeograph form! And learned how to run a mimeograph machine! It was a bunch of years ago, and I was really young – but it was apparently considered Important To Learn, even if the expectation of computers in the office loomed on the horizon.
And I remember typing on a MANUAL typewriter, thankyouverymuch. We didn’t have an electric when I was in high school, much less a self-correcting one – although it sure would have been useful.
@Shannon: I spent Good Money on a Brother word processor, about the time I started using a computer at my office. Guess what? Keyboards were TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Big waste of money THAT was.
…. Well, if you had wanted to keep the ball, you shouldn’t have thrown it up on my porch roof. It’s staying there until it comes down by itself; maybe that’ll teach you to be more careful next time.
I was planning on going into teaching, and in college, as late as 1997, in one of my education classes you could not receive a passing grade without demonstrating you could operate a ditto machine, a FILMSTRIP PROJECTOR (remember those?), and a VCR.
@OP: the painting you remember sounds a lot like the description of the painting in Stephen King’s Rose Madder to me. This is a long shot, but any possibility that you read it and went looking for a painting that matched the description?
Is it Martin Johnson Heade’s “Approaching Thunderstorm?” Dark blue, big space, red-clothed person facing away from viewer:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/heade/thunderstorm.jpg.html
Painting Search ’09 update: thus far, nothing linked in the thread has been the correct painting. Suzanne, I don’t think I’ve ever actually read Rose Madder (I mostly stuck to King’s short stories) so I don’t think I conflated it with something else. But looking for the book is a good idea and my English teacher that year is actually one of my Facebook friends, so I’m going to drop her a line and see what she thinks about me rooting around in the textbooks.
Is it possibly the painting at the beginning of this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekb6ALfBiT8
I can’t quite make out the name, it looks like Kay…. Kennedy?
that last painting is by Kaycee Kennedy:
http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/view/image/191326