untitled (after Edward Hicks)

Joan Nelson, artist

born 1958

Cirrus Editions Ltd., publisher

founded 1970

untitled (after Edward Hicks), 1993

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: lithograph; wove paper; screen print

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 506 x 506 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 19 15/16 x 19 15/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 24 x 32 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Lucy Shaw Schultz Fund

Accession number: 1997.0050

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Trees & Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature & Culture," Mar-2009, Steve Goddard
Joan Nelson’s eerie landscape bears small resemblance to the idyllic Peaceable Kingdom paintings made by Edward Hicks in the early 1800s. Where Hicks crowded his scenes with humans and wild animals living together in perfect harmony, Nelson depicts a deserted coastline. Only a few half-bare trees remain, their hollow trunks and unnaturally amputated limbs becoming strangely animated in the absence of other life. Although there is something disquieting about Nelson’s image, we can see it as a continuation of Hicks’ Utopian dream- either fully realized, or completely abandoned.