LOT 166
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Lot 166
MARVIN CONE (American 1891-1965)
Farm Silhouette – circa 1948
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
12 inches x 36 inches
Estimate:
$125,000 - 175,000
€ 92,500 - 129,500
Provenance:
Verdi F. Lenzen (from the artist), circa 1948; Charys L. Pinney (daughter of Mr. Lenzen); thence by descent through the family to the present owners.
Literature:
Joseph S. Czestochowski, Marvin D. Cone, Art as Self Portrait, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1990, page 151 (illustrated) and page 190 as 479
Exhibited:
Dubuque, Iowa, Glasell Galleries, Dubuque Art Association, Painting by Marvin Cone, April 14-21, 1950, as #6; Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cedar Rapids Art Center, Marvin Cone: A Retrospective Exhibition, November 9, 1980 – January 4, 1981, as #49; Iowa City, Iowa, The University of Iowa Museum of Art; Rural Visions: Paintings by Marvin Cone
Farm Silhouette is a unique and perhaps one-of-a-kind dusk time treatment by Cone of the horizontal farmscapes which have become so emblematic of his work. According to Czestochowski, on many occasions Cone and his wife Winifred traveled the Iowa countryside looking for subjects such as interesting landscapes or farmsteads. When he started painting farm scenes, many of the barns were very old and were quickly being replaced by modern, more efficient buildings. For this reason, works such as the offered lot were Cone’s closest attempts at documenting or romanticizing the Iowa farm. Cone’s farmscapes also share some similarities with his more contemporary interior scenes most notably the fact that both are devoid of the transient distraction of human presence as well as being carefully structured and geometrically ordered. Farm Silhouette, and all its elements; barn, out buildings, windmill, house, with dimly illuminated windows, weeping willow, fading cloud bank and rising sliver of moon, is instantly recognizable to all who have ever traveled the roads of rural Iowa and is representative in many ways of Cones most popular works. Cone’s deliberate effort to try and capture what he felt was a rapidly disappearing aspect of the Iowa country side, was something which sprung forth from Cone’s desire to be a distinguished community artist, a concept often associated today with regionalism, however Cone, by his own definition, was not a regionalist. Unlike his close friend Grant Wood, Cone did not fit the popular concept of an artist, nor did he share Wood’s sense of mission about stylistic movements. In particular Cone was not sympathetic to regionalism, although he is frequently described as a regionalist painter. However for Cone, painting was strictly a personal pursuit, with little relationship to movements or stylistic trends.
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