Chuck Wood Trompe l’Oeil Still Life of Striped Melons in Barn Window, c. 1970s

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Chuck Wood Trompe l’Oeil Still Life of Striped Melons in Barn Window, c. 1970s

A large and technically accomplished trompe … Read more Chuck Wood Trompe l’Oeil Still Life of Striped Melons in Barn Window, c. 1970s

A large and technically accomplished trompe l’oeil still life by Chuck Wood (American, 1928–2010), signed lower right “CW,” depicting a group of striped melons arranged behind an iron-barred barn window. Executed in oil on canvas and presented in its original House of Heydenryk frame, the work is a strong example of Wood’s mature realist practice, in which vernacular architecture, controlled light, and illusionistic depth are used to elevate an otherwise ordinary rural subject into a highly structured meditation on surface, space, and perception.

Wood was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1928, raised in Chicago, and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work was informed by the precision of American realism and often compared to Andrew Wyeth in its restrained palette, architectural quietude, and emphasis on texture and atmosphere. Though he worked outside the dominant mid-century abstraction of his era, Wood developed a committed realist vocabulary rooted in observation and illusion. His work was exhibited widely in Chicago, collected privately, and included in the Vincent Price Collection. A retrospective of his work, Chuck Wood: 50 Years of the Real, was mounted by the Butler Institute of American Art.

Here, Wood organizes the composition with architectural rigor: the dark rectilinear grid of the iron bars contains the bright, irregular forms of the melons, while the weathered plaster surround functions almost as an abstract field of ochre and mineral green. The tension between the illusion of depth and the flatness of the painted wall is central to the picture’s success. The result is a distinctly American trompe l’oeil—measured, restrained, and psychologically quiet, with strong affinities to regional realism and postwar perceptual painting.

The painting retains its original House of Heydenryk frame, New York, whose label remains verso. Heydenryk was among the most respected framers of 20th-century American art, known for framing works by Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley, lending further period credibility and quality to the presentation.

Canvas: 39 in. H x 48 in. W
Framed: 49 in. H x 56 in. W See less