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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Kemper Art Museum
The Cranberry Pickers (A Study), c.1876–79 (Hills no. 26.4.5r). Verso
Verso
Photo: Kemper Art Museum
26.4 Cranberry—Panoramic Scenes

In June 1869 Johnson married Elizabeth Buckley of Troy, New York, and the following summer he and his wife and their baby, Ethel, went to Nantucket, Massachusetts for the season. Johnson responded enthusiastically to Nantucket, which seemed to be filled with characters and activities that appealed to him, and the couple returned to the island each summer. Beside painting genre scenes of men, women, and children both indoors and outside, Johnson launched a major theme—the cranberry harvest—a time in the fall when the whole community turned out to pick the wild cranberries ripening in the bogs of Nantucket. Johnson made at least eighteen studies before crafting his major painting, The Cranberry Harvest, which was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1880. —PH

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Hills no. 26.4.5r
Baur no. 52
The Cranberry Pickers (A Study)
Alternate titles: possibly The Cranberry Pickers; Berry Pickers; Cranberry Pickers (Study for "The Cranberry Harvest"); Cranberry Pickers—Study; In the Fields—Cranberry Picking; Study for the Cranberry Pickers; The Berry Pickers
c.1876–79
Oil on academy board
12 1/2 x 22 7/8 in. (31.8 x 58.1 cm)
Initialed lower right: E. J.
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2022: Johnson’s undated cranberry picking paintings, all studies for his planned monumental painting of the subject, have been given the circa date of 1876–1879. The beginning of the range is based on a September 27, 1876 article in the Island Review (Nantucket) reporting that Johnson "took several views from the west part of the town [where cranberry harvesting would have been taking place], to be embodied in one of his canvases." The range ends when Johnson would have started working in earnest on his acclaimed The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket, dated 1880 and exhibited at the National Academy of Design in March–May of that year. Johnson had begun to work on the subject as early as 1874, but the manner and extent to which he did is not known. On March 24, 1874, his friend and fellow artist Jervis McEntee wrote in his diary, “I met him [Johnson] on his way down town and walked with him down to 34th St. to [Th…s] gallery after which we walked back to his house. We had a talk about his Cranberry Picking picture which he is working on and a rambling conversation on various matters.” We thank art historians Marc Simpson and Anne Knutson for bringing our attention to these sources.

Markings
Inscribed on verso: upper left, sideways: [?]/4; along top edge, left to right: WU4063; 8987; [slightly lower] 17[?]435; 4947; 97[?]; WU4063; center, inside a circle: AD
Labels
Label on verso, upper right: 1475/"The Berry Pickers"/by/Eastman Johnson/12 x 23
Provenance
Frazier Gallery, New York, 1937
Albert Rosenthal, New Hope, Pennsylvania, by September 21, 1938–1939
Estate of Albert Rosenthal, with Albert Duveen, New York, by March 1940
Norman Hirschl Gallery, New York, by 1940
John Levy Galleries, New York, 1942
Albert Duveen, New York, by 1944 until at least January 1946
Victor D. Spark, New York, until 1947
Wildenstein and Company, New York, 1947 until February 27, 1963
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis., February 27, 1963 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1900a Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, American Paintings, January 11–13, 1900, [possibly, as The Cranberry Pickers].
1937 Frazier Gallery
Frazier Gallery, New York, Eastman Johnson 1824–1906: Forerunner of Homer and Eakins, September–October 1937. (Hirschl 1937); (Frazier Gallery 1937a), no. 16, as The Berry Pickers.
1942 John Levy Galleries
John Levy Galleries, New York, Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, April 8–30, 1942. (John Levy Galleries 1942), no. 15, as In the Fields—Cranberry Picking.
1946 M. Knoedler & Co.
M. Knoedler & Co, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson, January 7–26, 1946. (Exhibition catalogue: M. Knoedler & Co. 1946), no. 8, as Study for the Cranberry Pickers, owner Albert Duveen. Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
1948 Wildenstein & Co.
Wildenstein & Co, New York, Eastman Johnson, Summer 1948. (Wildenstein 1948), no. 14, as The Berry Pickers.
1949 Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art
Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art, Los Angeles, Winslow Homer 1836–1910, Eastman Johnson 1824–1906, February 4, 1949–May 7, 1950. (Exhibition catalogue: LACMA 1949), no. 17, as Berry Pickers. Traveled to: Denver Art Museum, Denver, 1949; Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego, 1949 (Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1949 (Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949); Oklahoma Arts Center, Oklahoma City, 1949 (Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1949 (Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949); Takoma Art League, Takoma, Washington, 1949 (Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949); Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, 1949 (Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949).
1975 San Jose Museum of Art
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California, Americans Abroad: Painters of the Victorian Era, December 5, 1975–January 21, 1976, unnumbered.
1990 Timken Art Gallery
Timken Art Gallery, San Diego, Eastman Johnson: The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket, April 15–June 24, 1990. (Exhibition catalogue: Simpson, Mills, and Hills 1990), no. 6, color illus., Pl. 6, as Cranberry Pickers—Study. Traveled to: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, July 5–September 16, 1990; Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, Connecticut, September 29–December 9, 1990.
References
New York Sun 1937
"New Light on Eastman Johnson." New York Sun, September 18, 1937.
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 62, no. 52, as Berry Pickers.
John Levy Galleries 1942
Exhibition of Eastman Johnson. New York: John Levy Galleries, 1942. Exhibition catalogue (1942 John Levy Galleries), n.p. (2), no. 15, as In the Fields—Cranberry Picking.
Crosby 1944
Crosby, Everett U. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA, 1944, pp. 13, 28, C.10, illus., as Berry Pickers.
Art News 1948
Art News 47 (Summer 1948).
Wildenstein 1948
Eastman Johnson. New York: Wildenstein, 1948. Exhibition catalogue (1948 Wildenstein & Co.), no. 14.
Fine Arts Society of San Diego 1949
Winslow Homer 1836–1910; Eastman Johnson 1824–1906. San Diego, CA: Fine Arts Society of San Diego, 1949. Exhibition catalogue (1949 Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art), n.p., no. 17, as Berry Pickers.
Ames 1969/1970
Ames, Kenneth. "Eastman Johnson: The Failure of a Successful Artist." Art Journal 29, no. 2 (Winter 1969/1970), pp. 174–83, illus.
College Art Journal 1970
College Art Journal (1970).
Simpson, Mills, and Hills 1990
Simpson, Marc, Sally Mills, and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket. San Diego, CA: Timken Art Gallery, 1990. Exhibition catalogue (1990 Timken Art Gallery), n.p., Pl. 6, illus., as Cranberry Pickers—Study.
Keywords
Record last updated May 27, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Cranberry Pickers (A Study), c.1876–79 (Hills no. 26.4.5r)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=418 (accessed on March 28, 2024).