#workinartweek

"Morning after the Wedding" about 1957 oil on canvas by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) at @columbusmuseum the Columbus Museum of Art. Written near the painting: This painting of two maids is one of the 321 cover paintings for the "Saturday Evening Post" magazine by Rockwell, one of America's most popular painters during his long career. Like this example, Rockwell focused on everyday working- and middle-class Americans. His carefully crafted realistic style was often based on photographs. Rockwell's genre scenes, that is, views of everyday life, follow traditions established in 17th-century Dutch art. Rockwell was formally trained, had a sound knowledge of the history of European art. In the 1950s, when daring abstract movements dominated contemporary art, Rockwell's conservative style provided a sharp contrast. In recent years his art has gained new appreciation among art historians and critics. #normanrockwell #rockwell #realism #saturdayeveningpost #oilpainting #oiloncanvas #columbusmuseumofart #workinart #workinartweek (at Columbus Museum of Art)

"Birth of a Sharecropper" 1939 transparent and opaque watercolor, and graphite pencil on paper by James B. Turnbull (1909-1976) at @whitneymuseum the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Written near the painting: James Turnbull, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, was one of the Midwestern Regionalis painters who portrayed agrarian life during the Great Depression. In the late 1930s, Turnbull created a series focused on sharecroppers, farmers who worked fields owned by wealthy landlords and received as a payment a small portion of the harvest—creating a system of indebtedness that perpetuated some of the socioeconomic structures of slavery after abolition. This watercolor depicts a group of sharecroppers as they assist with a child's birth taking place outside the tent. Although Turnbull foregrounded the collaborative efforts of these men and women, he also conveyed the anxiety resulting from the constant risk of eviction and displacement, common occurrences in the late 1930s, especially among groups as economically marginalized as the sharecroppers. The work's title, along with the makeshift living quarters and foreboding sky, suggests that the next generation may not escape this life of harsh labor and dire poverty. #jamesturnbull #jamesbturnbull #regionalism #regionalist #sharecropper #watercolorpainting #workinart #workinartweek (at Whitney Museum of American Art)

"Women Picking Olives" 1889 oil on canvas by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) at @metmuseum the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Written near the painting: At the end of 1889, Van Gogh painted three versions of this picture. He described the first as a study from nature "more colored with more solemn tones" (private collection) and the second as a studio rendition in a "very discreet range" of colors (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). This work, the most resolved and stylized of the three, was intended for his sister and mother, to whom Van Gogh wrote: "I hope that the painting of the women in the olive trees will be a little to your taste—I sent [a} drawing of it to Gauguin, ... and he thought it was good..." #vincentvangogh #themetropolitanmuseumofart #themet #vangogh #womenpickingolives #workinart #oilpainting #oiloncanvas #workinartweek (at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)