Hare and Hunting Boots

1926

Walt Kuhn

Painter, American, 1877 - 1949

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Walt Kuhn’s interest in still life began with fruit and flower paintings. In 1925 he expanded his study to game subjects, completing Hare and Hunting Boots the following year. This stark, desolate image is one of the artist’s most important early paintings, and it exhibits the expressive power characteristic of his mature work. The painting reveals a range of influences, such as the northern European tradition of game and trophy pictures, the still lifes of 18th-century French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and, in the presence of the old boots, the shoe paintings of Vincent van Gogh. Kuhn recorded that Hare and Hunting Boots “received much favorable comment” when it was exhibited at the Marie Harriman Gallery in 1930 and that “they could have sold it, if cheaper, but it is too complete a picture to let go cheap.” The painting remained in the artist’s collection for the rest of his life.

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

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

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Hare and Hunting Boots, 1926

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist [1877-1949]; his estate; (Maynard Walker Gallery, New York); purchased 18 December 1959 by W. Averell [1891-1986] and Marie N. [1903-1970] Harriman, New York; W. Averell Harriman Foundation; gift 1972 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1930

  • Exhibition of Paintings by Walt Kuhn, Marie Harriman Gallery, New York, 1930, no. 16, repro.

1958

  • Walt Kuhn, Albany Institute of History and Art, 1958, no. 1.

1959

  • Seventh Annual Exhibition, Museum of Art of Ogunquit, Maine, 1959, no. 17.

1960

  • Walt Kuhn 1877-1949: A Memorial Exhibition, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1960, no. 38, repro.

1961

  • Exhibition of the Marie and Averell Harriman Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1961, unnumbered catalogue, repro. 42.

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. 49, repro.

1984

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Walter Cutler, U.S. Embassy residence, Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, 1984-1990.

1990

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Charles W. Freeman, U.S. residence, Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, 1990.

Bibliography

1940

  • Bird, Paul. Fifty Paintings by Walt Kuhn. New York, 1940: 2, repro.

1978

  • Adams, Philip Rhys. Walt Kuhn, Painter: His Life and Work. Columbus, OH, 1978: 104-105, 250, no. 169, pl. 48, color repro.

1980

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

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 225, repro. 227.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 222, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Walt Kuhn / 1926

Wikidata ID

Q20192639

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