For Email Newsletters you can trust
Search:

OOC Folk Art Rural Farm Scene
Presented here, a very Folky Oil on Canvas of a Rural New York Autumn Farm Scene painted by Ellen Wade, aged 16 years as a present to her father.  There is wonderful clarity of detail here in the farmhouse, barn and outbuildings.  There are chickens in the yard and a cow in the pasture.  There is even a swing in the tree and an old water pump.  If you look closely you can see the corn stalk tepees out back beyond the fence.  The leaves shimmer brightly on a crisp autumn day as a horse and carriage come down the country lane and turn into the farmstead.  (Probably her father returning home.)
  
Through the use of carefully selected colors and extreme attention to detail, Ellen paints us a picture that tells us about rural New York farm life in the last half of the 19th Century.  While folk paintings are a valid medium for recapturing the past, one must bear in mind that many times they have been filtered through the artist's imagination.  When viewing a painting for its storytelling quality it is important to determine whether the artist was recording facts or using artistic license as historically accurate paintings are much more desirable.  I rather think that since this painting was a gift to her father, Ellen most likely used the family homestead as the inspiration for her painting which is a wonderful naive example of Folk Art.  It is framed in a period figured mahogany frame that compliments the piece beautifully.
 
The ultimate test of a true artist is in the ability to capture its life, to freeze it in time and then release it when someone looks at it over 100 years later.  Ellen certainly accomplished all of that and more.  The writing on the back of the canvas tells us enough about Ellen and the Wade family that I was able to garner some additional information about the family.  Ellen was the daughter of Edward Wade, a lawyer, and Ellen Wilson Carr who were married on Oct 27, 1863.  She was the sister of Judge Edward U. Wade and the 1880 Census shows her living at home in Albany, New York with her parents and older brother (b. 1868).  Ellen was born in 1873 and painted this picture for her father in 1889. She died of scarlet fever three years later in 1892 when she was only 19 years old.
 
This is a wonderful folk art painting that is further enhanced in that we know so much about the artist.  Though Ellen's life was relatively short she continues to live on in the work she left behind as a testament to her love and respect for her father.  Dimensions are 18-1/4" x 12" (sight) and 23" x 17" overall.
R05K080551

Questions?  Ask the Ferret!

© 2003 - 2024 House of the Ferret