Wednesday 21 August 2013

Edward Hicks - part 1

Edward Hicks (1780 – 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished minister of the Society of Friends. He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.


Edward Hicks  (1780, Attleboro, Pa., U.S. - died 1849, Newtown, Pa.) was an American primitive, or folk, painter known for his naive depictions of the farms and landscape of Pennsylvania and New York, and especially for his many versions (about 25 extant, perhaps 100 painted) of The Peaceable Kingdom. The latter work depicts Hicks’s belief, as a Quaker, that Pennsylvania was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (11:6–9) of justice and gentleness between all men and beasts. William Penn and other Quakers appear on the left of the picture, making their treaty with the Indians, while Isaiah’s beasts are gathered on the right with little children playing among them. The landscape, figures, and animals make a charmingly awkward pageant of the Quakers’ ideas.

Hicks came to art late. A painter of coaches and signs in early life, for many years he devoted all his serious energies to his avocation of preaching. It was as a preacher that he was celebrated among his contemporaries, and the 3,000 mourners at his funeral grieved at the loss of a favourite minister. He began to make easel paintings when he was in middle age, and with some reluctance. Although he feared that art was contrary to religion, he testified that it could sometimes bring meaning to life. Unable to make a painting without an apparent moral, he often framed a picture with edifying verse of his own composition, like that surrounding his view of Niagara Falls.

Biographical notes from Encyclopaedia Brittanica

This is part 1 of a 2-part post on the works of Edward Hicks:

At first glance a lot of these images look the same, but they were painted over many years and each has subtle differences and nuances.

 
1822-25c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 55.1 x 68.6 cm 
Private Collection
1827-28c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 54 x 71.1 cm 
Private Collection

1822-25c Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch 
oil on wood 85.4 x 125.7 cm 
Private Collection

1822-25c The Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch 
oil on canvas 81.9 x 95.9 cm 
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre

1825-26c Falls of Niagara 
oil on panel 57.8 x 76.5 cm 
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre

1825c The Falls of Niagara 
oil on canvas 80 x 96.5 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork

1826 Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 83.5 x 106 cm 
Philadelphia Museum of Art

1826-28c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 74.3 x 89.5 cm 
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre

1826-28c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 
New York State Historical Association

1826-29 Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 76.2 x 91.4 cm 
Private Collection

1826-29c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 73.7 x 91.4 cm 
Friends Historical Library, USA

1826-30c Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch

1828-30c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas

1829-30 Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 44.8 x 60 cm 
Terra Foundation for American Art

1829-30c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 44.4 x 59.7 cm 
Yale University Art Gallery

1829-30c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 45.1 x 60.3 cm 
Friends Historical Library, USA

1829-31c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 42.5 x 50.8 cm 
Private Collection

1830-35c Penn's Treaty 
oil on canvas 44.8 c 57.8 cm 
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre

1830-40c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 44.3 x 59.8 cm 
Brooklyn Museum, USA

1830-40c Penn's Treaty with the Indians 
oil on canvas 44.8 x 60 cm 
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

1834 Washington at the Delaware 
oil on canvas 82.5 x 80 cm 
Private Collection

1834c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 76.2 x 90.2 cm 
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

1835-37c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 28 x 35 cm 
Mercer Museum, Pennsylvania

1835-40 Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 29 x 35.7 cm 
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1835-40c Peaceable Kingdom 
oil on canvas 30.1 x 34.5 cm 
New York State Historical Association

1835-40c Washington at the Delaware 
oil on canvas 43.8 x 59.1 cm 
Mercer Museum, Pennsylvania

1835c Andrew Jackson 
oil on carriage cloth 54.6 x 50.6 cm 
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

2 comments:

  1. very nice...

    http://anketorler.blogspot.com/

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  2. I grew up with a copy of Hicks' The Falls of Niagara hanging in our living room. My grandmother got it somewhere - a church bazaar, I believe - and then my parents had it and now I have it. The copy we have is much more like the Met version than the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre one you depict above. However, the colors on our copy are much duller than even the Met version, supposedly because the one we have hung in a tavern at some point.

    Our print is mounted on wood.

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