The Cornell Farm

1848

Edward Hicks

Artist, American, 1780 - 1849

Cows, horses, sheep, and pigs stand closely together in a band across the bottom edge of this horizontal painting. Rolling hills open onto grassy lawns, farms, and fields beyond. The two dozen cows spanning the leftmost two-thirds of the painting are cream white, tawny, russet, or dark brown, or speckled with brown or black and white. White sheep, six adult and one baby, cluster beyond the cows, to our left. Five black pigs are behind the cows across the middle of the picture, one of them suckling several piglets. Nine horses and foals gathered to our right are white, gray, or one of several shades of brown. The land on which the animals stand is teal blue underfoot. Pale green, grassy plots rise gently to either side of a trough or irrigation ditch that comes toward us from a culvert at the far side of the field. Eight men wearing tall hats, coats, and pants gather in pairs beyond the animals, and one man, farther in the distance, walks alone. The grassy lawn is hemmed to each side by fences, and more run across the back of the space. A man walks behind a horse-drawn plow to our right. There is a line of five spindly trees in front of the fence to our left. Three cows lie in that enclosure not far from one more tree. Several buildings painted with cream white and barn red line the plots across the back of the space. Beyond, painted lightly, as if hazy, lines of crops or trees blur into the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition. The sky above is pale petal pink, and it deepens to icy blue across the top edge. A couple bunches of white and tan-colored clouds drift to our right. Brown lettering against a sand-colored ground along the bottom edge reads, “An Indian summer view of the Farm & Stock of James C. Cornell of Northampton Bucks county Pennsylvania. Tat took the Premium in the Agricultural society, october the 12, 1848 Painted by E. Hicks in the 69th year of his age.” The name James C. Cornell is in all caps, and October begins with a lowercase o.

Media Options

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Edward Hicks, having apprenticed to a Pennsylvania coachmaker at thirteen, became a minister in 1811. He was torn between his calling as a Quaker minister and his love of painting, worrying that his art kept him from "the Lord's work."

Hicks precisely identified this subject with a long inscription along the bottom of the canvas: "An Indian summer view of the Farm & Stock OF JAMES C. CORNELL of Northampton Bucks county Pennsylvania. That took the Premium in the Agricultural society, October the 12, 1848 Painted by E. Hicks in the 69th year of his age." Though the punctuation and capitalization are inconsistent, the quality of the lettering proves that Edward Hicks was schooled in sign painting.

Having no background in academic art, Hicks employed the direct approach of a primitive or folk painter. The horizontal band of livestock across the foreground, although childlike in its simplicity, clearly presents each prize-winning animal as an individual portrait. Hicks' delight in creating ornamental pattern is evident in the arrangement of fences, while the rich red and bright white of the house and barn symmetrically flank this central landscape. Although the stark silhouettes of figures and buildings seem naive, Hicks softly blended his paints over the orchard to give the impression of space existing well beyond what the eye can see.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 63

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Painted for James C. Cornell, Northampton, Bucks County, Pennsylvania; to Theodore Cornell, his son; to Russell Cornell, his son; to Mr. and Mrs. J. Stanley Lee (Mrs. Lee is Hick's great-granddaughter), Newtown, Pennsylvania, by whom sold in 1954 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift to NGA, 1964.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1882

  • Bucks County Bi-Centennial Celebration, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1882.

1957

  • Art Our Children Live With, Downtown Gallery, New York, 1957, no cat.

  • American Primitive Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Part II, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1957, no. 81.

1958

  • American Folk Art. Part of American Art. Four Exhibitions, Brussels Universal and International Exhibition, Belgium, 1958, no. 84, 45, repro. 51.

1960

  • Edward Hicks, 1780-1849, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1960, no. 37.

1961

  • 101 Masterpieces of American Primitive Painting from the Collection of E.W. and B.C. Garbisch, traveling exh. by the Amer. Fed. of Arts, New York, 1961-1964, no. 75, color repro. First venue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1966

  • Three Self-Taught Pennsylvania Artist: Hicks, Kane and Pippin, Carnegie Institute of Art, Pittsburgh; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966-1967, no. 33, color repro.

1968

  • American Naive Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 111 Masterpieces from the Collection of E.W. and B.C. Garbisch, traveling exh. by Amer. Fed. of Arts, N.Y., 1968-1970, no. 73, repro. First venue: Grand Palais, Paris.

1970

  • American Naive Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: Masterpieces from the Collection of E.W. and B.C. Garbisch, organized by the Amer. Fed. of Arts, N.Y., and Mainichi News., Nihobashi Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 1970, no cat.

  • The New World: 1620-1970, Chrysler Museum of Art, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1970, no. 15.

1971

  • What is American in American Art, M. Knoedler and Co. [benefit exhibition for the Museum of American Folk Art], New York, 1971, no. 46, color repro.

1974

  • Our Land, Our Sky, Our Water, organized for International Exposition, Spokane, Washington, 1974, no. 15.

1978

  • The American Folk Art Tradition: Paintings from the Garbisch Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978.

1980

  • American Folk Painters of Three Centuries, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1980, 96, color repro. (cat. edited by Jean Lipman and Thomas Armstrong).

1981

  • American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, 1981-1982, no. 26, color repro. (cat. by Ronald McKnight Melvin).

1985

  • American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Exh. cat. Traveling exh. by the International Exhibitions Foundation, Washington, 1985-1987, no. 36, color repro. First venue: Museum of American Folk Art, New York.

1988

  • La Nascita di Una Nazione: Pittori americani dalla National Gallery of Art di Washington 1730-1880, Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna; Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna di Ca'Pesaro, Venice, 1988-1989, no. 36, repro.

1996

  • 1846: Portrait of the Nation, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1996, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1997

  • Charles Sheeler in Doylestown: American Modernism and the Pennsylvania Tradition, Allentown Art Museum; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Cincinnati Art Museum, 1997-1998, no. 40, repro.

1999

  • The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks, 5 venues, shown only at the first two, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999-2000, no. 82, fig. 171.

2018

  • Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2018-2019, no. 35, repro.

Bibliography

1947

  • Editorial, Antiques, 52 (October 1947): 252-253.

1950

  • Lipman, Jean, and Alice Winchester. Primitive Painters in America 1750-1950. New York, 1950: 46-47.

1952

  • Ford, Alice. Edward Hicks, Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom. Philadelphia, 1952: 97, 107, 108, 121, color repro. opp. 108.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:480, color repro.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 68, repro.

1971

  • Campbell, William P. "The American Heritage at the National Gallery of Art." Connoisseur 178 (December 1971): 270, 272.

1974

  • Lipman, Jean, and Alice Winchester. The Flowering of American Folk Art. New York, 1974: color pl. 70.

1975

  • Parry, Ellwood. "Edward Hicks and A Quaker Iconography." Arts Magazine 49 (June 1975): 94.

1976

  • Lipman, Jean, and Helen M. Franc. Bright Stars: American Painting and Sculpture Since 1776. New York, 1976: color repro., 60.

1978

  • King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 100, pl. 63.

1979

  • Haverstock, Mary Sayre. An American Bestiary. New York, 1979: color repro., 146.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 175, repro.

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 10, no. 19, color repro.

1983

  • Mather, Eleanore Price. Edward Hicks: His Peaceable Kingdoms and Other Paintings. Newark, Delaware, 1983: 85, 195, no. 106, color pl. 8.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 543, no. 820, color repro.

1985

  • Ford, Alice. Edward Hicks, His Life and Art. New York, 1985: 234-236, color repro.

1988

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 90, no. 22, color repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 202, repro.

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 226, repro.

  • Chotner, Deborah, with contributions by Julie Aronson, Sarah D. Cash, and Laurie Weitzenkorn. American Naive Paintings. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 194-196, color repro. 195.

1998

  • Ford, Alice. Edward Hicks, Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom. Philadelphia, 1998: 97, 108, 120, repro.

2001

  • Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA II: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, 2001: 178-179, 216, color repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 300, no. 242, color repro.

2021

  • Schwartz, Sanford. On Edward Hicks. Seattle, 2021: 120-123, 148, color repro.

Inscriptions

across bottom: An Indian summer view of the Farm & Stock of JAMES C. CORNELL of Northampton Bucks county Pennsylvania. That took the Premium in the Agricultural society, october the 12, 1848 / Painted by E. Hicks in the 69th year of his age.

Wikidata ID

Q7727622

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