Artist's Hand Holding Children's Drawings

© Dickinson Estate. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton Colle…

ExpandFavoriteView PDF

Images(2)

Artist/Maker Edwin W. Dickinson (American, 1891 - 1978)

DateFebruary - March 1940

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 23 × 20 in. (58.4 × 50.8 cm) Frame: 30 1/4 × 27 × 1 7/8 in. (76.8 × 68.6 × 4.8 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Daniel W. Dietrich II, Class of 1964

Object number2016.8.1

Not on view

DescriptionEdwin W. Dickinson was born in Seneca Falls, New York, and attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1910 to 1911, followed by the Art Students League, where he studied with the painter William Merritt Chase. From 1913 until about 1939–40, he lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts; thereafter, he continued to spend his summers on Cape Cod, in Wellfleet, but lived elsewhere during the rest of the year, primarily in New York City. He taught at a number of institutions throughout his life, including the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, the Art Institute of Buffalo, Cornell University, and Boston University. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Dickinson executed a number of monumental, dark-toned canvases showing figures and objects within incongruous physical spaces, which have been cast as representations of memories, emotions, or dreams and as visual evocations of music. In the late 1940s, his work began to gain in popularity, and he was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s groundbreaking Fifteen Americans exhibition of 1952. His images were neither abstract nor explicitly Surrealist, however, and fell out of favor with the advent of Abstract Expressionism. According to his datebook, Dickinson began this work in Wellfleet on February 17, 1940, for an exhibition at the Georgette Passedoit Gallery in New York. In the painting, the artist’s left hand can be seen holding a drawing by his granddaughter. A second drawing, this one by his grandson, is visible in the background. The inclusion of a picture or a window within a painted representation was a device that Dickinson used more than once during this period. The present work can be understood as reflecting on the nature of art itself: what compels us to create, and how do we represent in two dimensions the world around us? Daniel W. Dietrich II, Class of 1964, was a passionate supporter of the Emerson Gallery and of the arts in general at Hamilton College and donated funds that were used in the construction of the Wellin Museum. Upon his death in 2015, he bequeathed four paintings, including this one, and eighteen drawings by Dickinson to the College. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017)

Collections

American Art

Additional Details

Exhibition History 2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 78, illus.);

2002-2003
Buffalo, NY (Albright Knox Art Gallery). "Edwin Dickinson: Dreams and Realities," April 27 - July 14, 2002 (cat. no. 35); travelled to: Philadelphia, PA (Pennsylvania Academy) September 14 - November 24, 2002; New York, NY (National Academy of Design) January 29 - April 13, 2003; Little Rock, AR (Arkansas Art Center) May 9 - July 20, 2003; Lincoln, NB (Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery) August 29 - November 9, 2003;

1982
New York, NY (National Academy of Design Galleries). "Edwin Dickinson: Draftsman/Painter," April 7 - May 9, 1982 (cat. not numbered, illus. p.51), travelled to: Springfield, MA (Museum of Fine Arts) July 3 - August 15, 1982; West Palm Beach, FL (Norton Gallery of Art) September 10 - October 17, 1982;

1965
New York, NY (Whitney Museum of American Art). "Edwin Dickinson," October 20 - November 28, 1965 (cat. no. 55, illus. p. 37);

1962
San Francisco, CA;

1947
Provincetown, MA (Provincetown Art Association), 1947.

Provenance 2016: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College) by bequest of Daniel W. Dietrich II;
by 2002 - 2016: Daniel W. Dietrich II;
?: unknown;
?: Rebecca Hannum;
?: Helen Dickinson Baldwin.

Published References Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 182.

Signature Signed "E W Dickinson" in paint on right.