1950s James Apostle "Tobacco Road" Painting

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James Apostle (American 1917—2003)
(Sketch 89, Pine Knob S--) Tobacco Road
Oil on Canvas, 1957

Marvelous and haunting "New England … Read more James Apostle (American 1917—2003)
(Sketch 89, Pine Knob S--) Tobacco Road
Oil on Canvas, 1957

Marvelous and haunting "New England Gothic" painting by American James Apostle. The composition shows cultivated fields backed by trees under an ominous, striped sky. To the right is a foreshortened barn and a collapsing privy. Before these are cast off furniture and empty bottles lost in a tangle of weeds. The pathos and dread (some might say horror) of the scene is accented with enormous black spiders and fierce crows.
Apostle handles the paint with great ingenuity bringing to the fore the medium's plasticity as well as texture. The color planes of the fields are thickly laid and then etched with the pointed end of the brush or some other tool. The spiders and crows are paint straight from the tube--come quite literally from another dimension. White and green starbursts on the trees are made in a similar fashion. Apostle further expresses motion with waves of color in the sky and tone-on-tone patterned trees reminiscent of Charles Birchfield. Shadows and recesses gain additional mystery through sgrafitto effects.
Signed on the upper stretcher and notated "Sketch 89 Pine Knob (illegible)." The piece was retitled "Tobacco Road" by the owner, Rex. The title, borrowed from the 1932 novel (and long-running play) by Erskine Caldwell, is an apt one as the canvas expresses the desperation and depravity of the characters if not the setting. The story takes place among fallow fields in Georgia where the crop was cotton. The late spring cornfield here is almost certainly western Massachusetts or Connecticut.

James Apostle was a rising star among the post-war Expressionists in the company of DeKooning, Pollack, Mitchell and Rothko, who disappeared. This is one of only 25 pieces he sold or gifted in his lifetime. The rest of his output came to public attention in 2010 when Kimball Auctions began selling his estate.

MARKINGS: signed and dated by artist on back, as shown. Brass plaque engraved with title and artist attached to frame.
MEASURES Approx. 31" x 26"
Framed within the last 10 years in distressed wood frame with linen liner. 38-3/4" x 31.

Excellent, pre-owned condition. There is some crazing super left and dust has collected in the textured elements. No other damage to artwork apparent. There are water stains on the liner, as shown, and accumulated dust in the woodgrain.

James Apostle was born in Thompsonville, Connecticut and lived his entire life in the Connecticut River Valley. He was an emerging star of the post war art scene who missed his chance to breakthrough. In 1949 Life Magazine invited him to submit photographs of his works for an article on up and coming artists. Apostle just could not afford to do it. He then went to work as a lithographer to support his family. He continued to paint and developed his formidable vision and technique in artistic isolation. Apostle did not come to the attention of the art world again until 2010 when Kimball Auctions in Amherst, MA, began auctioning works from his estate. Kimball estimated that only 170 paintings by this unique master exist. See less