American Masterpieces from the Batten Collection

George Bellows (1882-1925), Edward Redfield (1869-1965), and William Glackens (1870-1938) also take the American landscape as their subject, each selecting a scene and style that suits their artistic personality. Bellows, best known for his powerful depictions of boxers and gritty urban scenes, here shows us a New York farm where he often spent the weekend. With rough gestural strokes he captures the wonderful moment when winter fades into spring.

Redfield devoted nearly his entire artistic career to the rolling countryside of Bucks County, Pennsylvania along the Delaware River. He particularly relished the challenge of bringing life to winter scenes. Often in his quest to capture the exact light and detail of a scene, he set up his easel in the snow.

One of America’s greatest painters, Winslow Homer (1836-1910), is represented by two charming and intimate works each showing a single figure in a private moment of contemplation. In one, a young woman has paused to pluck a good-luck four-leaf clover. In the second, a farmer pauses at the end of his day, the warm afternoon sun on his back, to gaze across a recently harvested field.

Things don’t seem to be going quite as well for the picnickers in Thomas Hart Benton’s (1889-1975) painting. In this and all his work, the artist has a remarkable ability to endow trees, rocks, and plants with enormous energy and personality. Here a tree almost seems to be reaching out deliberately to grab the unlucky girl.