Joseph Stella, Old Man Sleeping in a Field, c. 1908
Joseph Stella (American 1877–1946)
Old Man Sleeping in a Field, c. 1908
Gouache and chalk on paper, 11 1/4 × 16 3/4 in (28.57 × 42.55 cm)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Copperweld, Hafner, and Fine Arts Discretionary Funds, 84.52
I’ve always liked this drawing, which seemed a particularly suitable purchase for the Carnegie since it most likely was made in Pittsburgh, when Joseph Stella was making drawings of social conditions there for the magazine of social reform, The Survey. There’s an interesting tension in the piece between the refined delicacy of the technique, which has a poetic, evocative Whistleresque quality, and the brutal toughness of the subject.
Bibliography
Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, exhibition catalogue of l00 selected drawings, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, May l985, pp. 144-47.