Green Apples and Scoop

1939

Walt Kuhn

Painter, American, 1877 - 1949

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Although Walt Kuhn is most famous for his many representations of circus workers, still lifes were an important part of his oeuvre. Green Apples and Scoop is one of two major still-life compositions painted during the summer of 1939 in Ogunquit, Maine. Apples appear in abundance in Kuhn’s still lifes, and he once commented that “they reminded him of backsides,” a statement that his biographer Philip Rhys Adams dismissed as “a bawdy brush-off of a difficult question.” Be that as it may, Kuhn took his apples seriously: he remarked that an apple still life he painted in 1944 was the result of “at least four years of investigating apples in general.” When Green Apples and Scoop was exhibited at Durand-Ruel Galleries in 1946, a critic deemed it an example of “solid and magnificent painting” that was “built from simple grandeur and its color fairly sings with joy.” Among the artist’s most successful still lifes, William H. Gerdts and Russell Burke selected it to represent Kuhn’s contribution to the genre in their classic study American Still-Life Painting (1971).

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

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Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Green Apples and Scoop, 1939

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Durand-Ruel Gallery, New York); purchased 12 December 1946 by W. Averell [1891-1986] and Marie N. [1903-1970] Harriman, New York; W. Averell Harriman Foundation, New York; gift 1972 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1941

  • Probably Walt Kuhn, Grace Horne Galleries, Boston, 1941.[1]

1946

  • Paintings by Walt Kuhn, Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1946, no. 1.

1956

  • Pictures Collected by Yale Alumni, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1956, no. 162, repro.

1958

  • Walt Kuhn, Albany Institute of History and Art, 1958, no. 13.

1960

  • Walt Kuhn 1877-1949: A Memorial Exhibition, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1960, no. 79, color repro.

1961

  • Exhibition of the Marie and Averell Harriman Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1961, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1966

  • Painter of Vision: A Retrospective Exhibition of Oils, Watercolors and Drawings by Walt Kuhn, 1877-1949, The University of Arizona Art Gallery, Tucson, 1966: no. 89, repro.

1978

  • Walt Kuhn: A Classic Revival, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Wichita Art Museum; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1978-1979, no. 40.

1981

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Maxwell M. Rabb, U.S. Embassy residence, Rome, Italy, 1981-1989.

1989

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Peter F. Secchia, U.S. Embassy residence, Rome, Italy, 1989-1990.

1991

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Robert H. Pelletreau, U.S. Embassy residence, Cairo, Egypt, 1991-1993.

1993

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Pamela Harriman, U.S. Embassy residence, Paris, France, 1993-1997.

1997

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary William M. Daley, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1997-2000.

2000

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, U.S. Department of of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001.

2001

  • Extended loan for use by Mrs. Richard Cheney, Old Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C., 2001-2009.

2018

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary Alex M. Azar II, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., 2018-2021.

Bibliography

1971

  • Gerdts, William H., and Russell Burke. American Still-Life Painting. New York, 1971: 219, fig. 16-7.

1978

  • Adams, Philip Rhys. Walt Kuhn, Painter: His Life and Work. Columbus, OH, 1978: 187-188, 267, no. 387, color repro.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 190, repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 223, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: Walt Kuhn / 1939

Wikidata ID

Q20193211

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