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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: Detroit Institute of Arts
[ 26.5 Cranberry—Small Scenes ]info
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26.5 Cranberry—Small 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. 26.5.3
Baur no. 64
In the Fields
c.1876–79
Locale: Nantucket, Massachusetts
Oil on academy board
17 3/4 x 27 1/2 in. (45.1 x 69.8 cm)
Initialed lower right: E.J.
Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Dexter M. Ferry Fund (38.1)
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.

Detroit Institute of Arts object record, date unknown: "Autumn landscape primarily brown and gold with sketchy figures in bright sunlight, some holding baskets, others bent over picking something."

Provenance
Frazier Gallery, New York, until 1938
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 1938 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
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. 17, as In the Fields.
1939 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, January 18, 1939–February 26, 1940. (Exhibition catalogue: Baur 1940), no. 64, b/w illus., Pl. XXII, as In the Fields.
1961 Art Gallery of Hamilton
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, American Realists: An Exhibition of American Paintings from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Centuries, March 11–April 23, 1961. (Exhibition catalogue: Art Gallery of Hamilton 1961), no. 34, as In the Fields.
1970 Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 19th-Century America: Paintings and Sculpture, 1970, no. 145, b/w illus.
1972 Whitney Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 87, b/w illus., p. 99, as In the Fields. Traveled to: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, June 7–July 22, 1972; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, August 15–September 30, 1972; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, October 20–December 3, 1972.
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. 13, color illus., Pl. 13, as In the Fields. 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
Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 1938
Detroit Institute of Arts. "Eastman Johnson's 'In the Fields.'" Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts of the City of Detroit 18, no. 1 (October 1938), p. 2, illus.
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), pp. 51, 63, no. 64, as In the Fields.
Crosby 1944
Crosby, Everett U. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA, 1944, pp. 12, 25, C.6, illus., as In the Fields.
Baker 1950
Barker, Virgil. American Painting: History and Interpretation. New York: MacCall, 1950, p. 110.
Milwaukee Art Center 1960
At Work: Daumier to Shahn. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Center, 1960, no. 10.
Art Gallery of Hamilton 1961
American Realists: An Exhibition of American Paintings from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Centuries. Ontario: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 1961. Exhibition catalogue (1961 Art Gallery of Hamilton), no. 34.
McCoubrey 1963
McCoubrey, John W. American Tradition in Painting. New York: George Braziller, 1963, p. 37, illus.
Gallery at the Better Living Center 1964
Four Centuries of American Masterpieces. New York: Gallery at the Better Living Center, New York World's Fair, 1964, no. 18, illus.
Green 1966
Green, S. M. American Art: A Historical Survey. New York: Ronald Press, 1966, p. 376, illus.
Wilmerding 1967
Wilmerding, John. Pittura americana dell'Ottocento. Milan: Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1967, p. 64, illus.
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.
Metropolitan Museum of Art 1970
19th Century America: Paintings and Sculpture. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1970. Exhibition catalogue, n.p., no. 145, as In the Fields.
Wilmerding 1970
Wilmerding, John. Audubon, Homer, Whistler, and Nineteenth-Century America. New York: McCall, 1970, pp. 12, 56, illus.
Detroit Institute of Arts 1971
Handbook. Detroit, MI: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1971, p. 142.
Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 99, no. 87, illus., as In the Fields.
Williams 1973
Williams, Hermann Warner, Jr. Mirror to the American Past: A Survey of American Genre Painting, 1750–1900. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1973, p. 145, illus.
Davidson 1974
Davidson, A. A. The Story of American Painting. New York: Harry N. Abraham, 1974, p. 92, illus.
Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 1976
Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, no. 21 (March 6–October 10, 1976), illus.
Lipman, Franc, and Baur 1976
Lipman, Jean, Helen M Franc, and John I. H. Baur. Bright Stars: American Painting and Sculpture since 1776. New York: Dutton, 1976, p. 88, illus.
Detroit Free Press 1979
"Family Art Game [DIA Advertising Supplement]." Detroit Free Press, May 20, 1979, p. 26, illus.
Detroit Institute of Arts 1979
"Selected Works from the Detroit Institute of Arts." Detroit, MI: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1979, p. 185, no. 149, illus., as In the Fields.
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. 13, illus., as In the Fields.
Hills 1997
Hills, Patricia. "Bio on Eastman Johnson and his paintings Worthington Whittredge, Self-Portrait, In the Fields, Catherine Butler Dusenberry (Mrs. Allan Shelden)." In American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Vol. II: Works by Artists Born between 1816 and 1847, introduction by Nancy Rivard Shaw. New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with the Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society, 1997.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1970-08
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. "In the Fields, c.1876–79 (Hills no. 26.5.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=428 (accessed on April 16, 2024).