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

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Photo: Reproduced in Everett U. Crosby, Eastman Johnson at Nantucket, 1944
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

View all works in this theme »

Hills no. 26.4.8
Baur no. 57
Cranberry Pickers
Alternate titles: Cranberry Pickers in Nantucket; Finished Study for The Cranberry Pickers; Study for "The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket"; Study for Cranberry Pickers; Study for The Cranberry Pickers; The Cranberry Pickers
c.1876–79
Oil on board
18 3/8 x 28 3/4 in. (46.7 x 73 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.

Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
Thomas N. Metcalf, Boston, 1940–1944
John Levy Galleries, New York, 1944
Norman Hirschl, New York, 1946
Victor D. Spark, New York, until 1948
Wildenstein and Company, New York, 1948–1968
Lawrence Fleischman, Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, 1968
H. J. Heinz III, Pittsburgh, by 1971
Collection of Teresa Heinz and the late Senator John Heinz, by 1999
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1900a Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, American Paintings, January 11–13, 1900, no. 3, [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. 19, as The Cranberry Pickers.
1939 Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Art in New England: New England Genre, May 15–September 1, 1939. (Exhibition catalogue: Fogg Art Museum 1939), no. 18.
1944a John Levy Galleries
John Levy Galleries, New York, America in the 19th Century: Its People, Pleasures, and Pursuits, May 16–June 9, 1944. (John Levy Galleries 1944), no. 1, as Cranberry Pickers in Nantucket.
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. 11, as Study for The Cranberry Pickers, lent by Norman Hirschl. Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
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. 16, as Cranberry 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).
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. 11, color illus., Pl. 11, as Cranberry Pickers. 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.
1999 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 58, color illus., p. 101, as Study for "The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket". Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
References
Fowler 1906
Fowler, Frank. "Eastman Johnson—His Life and Works." Scribner's Magazine 40, no. 2 (August 1906), p. 256 [possibly, as The Cranberry Pickers].
Frazier Gallery 1937a
Frazier Gallery. Eastman Johnson: 1824–1906: Forerunner of Homer and Eakins. New York: Frazier Gallery, 1937. Exhibition catalogue (1937 Frazier Gallery), no. 19, as The Cranberry Pickers.
Fogg Art Museum 1939
New England Genre. Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, 1939. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Fogg Art Museum), pp. 39-40, no. 18.
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. 57, as Cranberry Pickers.
Crosby 1944
Crosby, Everett U. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA, 1944, pp. 13, 26, no. C.8, illus., as Finished Study for The Cranberry Pickers.
John Levy Galleries 1944
America in the 19th Century: Its People, Pleasures, and Pursuits. New York: John Levy Galleries, 1944. Exhibition catalogue (1944a John Levy Galleries), n.p., no. 1, as Cranberry Pickers in Nantucket.
M. Knoedler & Co. 1946
Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1946. Exhibition catalogue (1946 M. Knoedler & Co.), no. 11, as Study for The Cranberry Pickers.
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. 16, as Cranberry Pickers.
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., illus.
Carbone and Hills 1999
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), p. 101, no. 58, as Study for "The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket".
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1971-06-15
Examination notes: Blue sky—brushy; very sketchy; faces—two strokes light brown and dark brown; middle ground is yellow-green. Brownish in front.Brownish, greenish look.
Keywords
Record last updated May 18, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Cranberry Pickers, c.1876–79 (Hills no. 26.4.8)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=420 (accessed on March 29, 2024).