$4,740
Gary Ernest Smith (American, b. 1942) Potato Season Signed "GARY ERNEST SMITH ©" l.r., also signed, titled, and inscribed "...GARY E. SMITH/© COPYRIGHT RETAINED" on the stretcher. Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm), framed. Condition: Retouch. N.B. Utah artist Gary Ernest Smith is best known for his heroic regionalist style, drawing on everyday scenes of the agricultural Northwest. The present work shares a spirit with Jean-Francois Millet's The Angelus, in its humble and pious tone. The potato picker's anonymous face is soft and ageless, in contrast to the hard lines of his hands, pick, and crate. His relaxed, upright posture belies the hours he has just spent kneeling, bending, and squatting in the early morning, expressing endurance and resiliency. The work is at once a dignified portrait of a man and his livelihood, and a valorization of a simpler way of life. Several areas of retouch and/or pigment fluorescence in the l.l. and l.r. quadrants, the largest measuring approx. 1 1/2 x 3/4 in.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2009-09-11
