Edward Hicks

American, 1780 - 1849

Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike License

American artist (1780-1849)

Explore Selected Works

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.
Edward Hicks, The Cornell Farm, 1848, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1964.23.4

The Cornell Farm

Edward Hicks · 1848 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1964.23.4

Edward Hicks, The Grave of William Penn, c. 1847/1848, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1980.62.12

The Grave of William Penn

Edward Hicks · c. 1847/1848 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1980.62.12

Eight pale-skinned men and thirteen brown-skinned, indigenous Lenape men, women, and a baby gather on a grassy field close to us in this horizontal painting. The white men are cleanshaven and have puffy gray, shoulder-length hair. Most wear black tricorn hats, and they all wear coats, vests, and pants in shades of tan, gray, red, brown, and white. An unfurled scroll in the middle of this group reaches from shoulder to calf, and most of the word “Pennsylvania” is legible there. Two bareheaded men kneel in front of the Lenape, holding a bolt of red cloth. The Lenape men wear black, red, and white feathered headdresses and gold earrings. Some are bare-chested and others wear furs or other garments in black or white. Three men are seated and look at the group of white men beyond the bolt of cloth. Others stand and look on, as two women and a baby sit in a trio to our left, under a tree. The women wear beaded headdresses and wear white or blue. One of the seated Lanape men holds a long, white clay pipe that spouts smoke from the short bowl. A bow and a quiver with arrows lies on the ground nearby. All the people are painted simply with large eyes, rounded lips, and oversized noses. To our right of the whole group, a pale-skinned man sits on a wooden chest with one foot resting on another chest. A second man there leans on another box or piece of furniture, and both look to our left. The grass slopes gently down to an ivory-white body of water in the distance. White and Lenape men meet near the shoreline. A boat carries seven people between us and a long white, two-storied building on the far shore. The sky above is pale pink along the horizon with wispy white clouds kicking up under an ice-blue band of sky along the top edge of the canvas. Closer to us, the grassy plateau ends with a shallow, rocky ledge. Text painted in a gold-brown field below the scene reads, “PENNS TREATY with the INDIANS, made 1681 with out an Oath, and never broken. The foundation of Religious and Civil LIBERTY, in the U.S. of AMERICA.” The surface of the canvas is cracked in some areas and is especially noticeable in the sky.
Edward Hicks, Penn's Treaty with the Indians, c. 1840/1844, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1980.62.11

Penn's Treaty with the Indians

Edward Hicks · c. 1840/1844 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1980.62.11

A pale-skinned child wearing a short-sleeved red dress and a white bonnet stands before a shadowy green forest under dark clouds in this vertical portrait painting. The child’s over-large head is out of scale with the rest of her body. She looks toward us with brown eyes in her wide, round-jawed face. She has a broad nose, and her pale lips are set in a line. Her lace bonnet lines her black hair like frothy seafoam and is tied with spring-green bows at the top and under her right ear, to our left. The low neckline of her crimson dress is lined with a wide white ruffle. Red fabric covers her hands, which are gathered in front of her waist. Gray clouds sweep over the hazy green forest in the background. A gnarled tree grows up the left side of the painting, framing the girl.
Edward Hicks, Portrait of a Child, c. 1840, oil on wood, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1980.62.14

Portrait of a Child

Edward Hicks · c. 1840 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1980.62.14

Edward Hicks, The Landing of Columbus, c. 1837, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1980.62.13

The Landing of Columbus

Edward Hicks · c. 1837 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1980.62.13

Three small children with pale pink skin sit and stand among a group of animals to our right as a group of eight indigenous people with light brown skin gather with eight white-skinned men near a riverbank in the distance to our left in this horizontal painting. The children and animals take up the right two-thirds of the composition. They gather on a flat-topped spit of land, which is covered in grass. All three children have blond hair and rounded features. Two sit on the ground at the bottom center of the painting. The largest animal is a caramel-brown bull, which stands next to a pale golden lion. The other animals are smaller in scale, and include a tiger, wolf, sheep, goats, cows, bears, and a jaguar, all sitting or standing at rest around the bull and lion. At the top center of the group of animals, one child stands over the lion’s back and has one arm around the tiger’s shoulders, and another child at the lower center touches the jaguar’s nose. A tree with olive-green, rust-red, and harvest-yellow leaves grows up the right edge of the canvas, in front of a tall, forest-green bush. On another spit of flat-topped, elevated grassy land to our left, six of the indigenous people stand in a row, wearing feathered headdresses. Two more kneel in front, creating a U-shape. The two in front wear loin cloths, and all eight wear gold earrings and necklaces. They face a gathering of eight men wearing tricorn hats, long coats, waistcoats, knee-length britches, and stockings in shades of gray, blue, white, brown, and orange. One of these men hold up a roll of cloth lifted out of a chest. Trees with spindly trunks and golden yellow canopies reach into the top corner of the painting along the left edge. The river extends into the distance beyond this group, with pale, sage-green hills carpeted in trees. Puffy white clouds float across a sky that deepens from pale shell pink along the horizon to light blue along the top. The features of the animals and children are painted simply and appear rather flat, giving them an almost cartoonish look.
Edward Hicks, Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1834, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1980.62.15

Peaceable Kingdom

Edward Hicks · c. 1834 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1980.62.15

Bibliography

1851

  • Hicks, Edward. Memoirs of the Life and Religious Labors of E. Hicks. Philadelphia, 1851.

1934

  • Dresser, Louisa. "The Peaceable Kingdom." Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum 25 (Spring 1934): 25-30.

1945

  • Price, Frederick Newlin. Edward Hicks 1780-1849. The Benjamin West Society, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 1945.

1951

  • Bye, Arthur Edwin. "Edward Hicks." Art in America 39 (February 1951): 23-35.

1952

  • Ford, Alice. Edward Hicks, Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom. Philadelphia, 1952.

1983

  • Mather, Eleanore Price. Edward Hicks: His Peaceable Kingdoms and Other Paintings. Newark, Delaware, 1983.

1985

  • Ford, Alice. Edward Hicks, His Life and Art. New York, 1985.

1992

  • 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: 182-183.