Shacks and Hillside

Shacks and Hillside

This landscape oriented oil painting features multiple shacks and other structures depicted against an area of green grass and hillside, with some sky visible at the top 1/8 of the composition. The immediate foreground of the painting contains grass and two rocklike forms at right. In the middle foreground there are several structures depicted. At extreme left one is seen, mostly cut off by the edge of the composition and extending vertically almost the entire height of the canvas. The structure is composed of a bluish wall with a dark gray roof line. Behind it and to the right of it is a pale gray structure with teal trim and a slanted gray roof. Its roof slants in toward the center of the scene. A small window with teal outer trim and white inner trim is seen on the upper right of its wall facing the viewer. A tall, slim orange chimney juts up from the right side of the structure’s roof. To the right of the pale gray structure, in almost the center of the composition, we see a gray shack-like structure with a slanted roof. The structure is seemingly constructed out of somewhat loose boards. It is seen from a ¾ view and appears to almost be tipped back in space slightly toward the viewer. Directly behind it and slightly to the right, and mostly obscured by it, is another, larger house-like structure with a high, peaked roof line, also seen from a ¾ view. A portion of one of its walls is seen on its left side and is dark brown in color. Another one of its walls, seen on its right side, is gray. The structure’s roof is a darker, purplish gray color with an eave visible at left, its underside depicted in pale yellow. A tall, thin, dark yellow chimney-like structure emanates from its roof. A gray-colored structure with a dark gray door is seen behind and to the right of the larger house-like structure, mostly obscured by it. In the far middle ground of the composition a small area of open, green field can be seen. A yellow form which may be a haystack is depicted near the front right of this space. Beyond the haystack and further back into the middle ground is a light bluish-gray two storied house with dark gray trim and a black roof. It is depicted in a ¾ view. A window is seen midway up the left side of the house, and staggered below it and to the right on its main story is what looks like a window or door. Another window, diamond-shaped, is depicted on the right side of the house’s upper story. Further back, beyond this structure, we see what looks like a two story roofed house with gray walls and white trim. It has a dark gray roof and is seen from a ¾ view. A black window with white trim is seen centered on the right face of the upper level of the structure, and a window or door with a black fill and white trim is seen on the left face of the main level. A variety of trees down in a variety of browns are depicted in the extreme rear of the middle ground, as well as several smaller trees done in dark green which dot the right side of the hillside. To the left of the brown trees at the center of the composition is an area of pinkish-salmon paint which may represent an open field or other recession of space into the hillside. The sky visible behind the hillside resides in the extreme background and is done in shades of white. Several clouds are depicted within the sky, done in a darker blueish gray. There are few lines in the work but those that have been depicted are crude in style and thick in form. Colors are applied mostly in discrete patches with little overlap. The work is signed and dated at lower right.

Regionalist and Abstract Expressionist artist Cameron Booth was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. He settled with his family in Moorhead, Minnesota as a child and graduating high school there in 1912. He went on to study art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1912-1917), where he focused on Impressionism. Booth served in World War I and remained in France for a period afterwards to continue his studies, during which time he became interested in Picasso, Cezanne and Braque, and in more abstract styles of art. Booth would go on to both teach and produce art and would become an active and integral member of the early Minnesota arts community. He returned to Minnesota In 1921 to teach at the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design). Booth’s subject matter concentrated on capturing local landscapes, farms, Indian peoples, and animals in Minnesota. He had a special interest in depicting horses, a subject which he would return to throughout his lifetime. In 1923 he also married Minneapolis public school teacher Pearle Miller. Booth returned to Europe in 1927 and 1928 to study with Cubist Andre L’hote in Paris and German artist Hans Hoffmann in Munich. He returned to Minnesota in 1929 to teach at the St. Paul School of Art, now the Minnesota Museum of American Art. In 1933 Booth become involved with the federal government’s Public Works of Art Project in Minnesota. In 1935 Booth had the honor of teaching at the University of California at Berkeley as a visiting artist, and achieved national recognition in 1942 by winning the Guggenheim Fellowship, thus enabling him to travel and paint throughout the American West. Booth returned to Minnesota in 1948 and taught at the University of Minnesota, where he rose in prominence and taught students included Pop artist James Rosenquist. Booth’s artistic style can be said to employ color as a means of communicating emotion and to create unexpected but compelling visual balance and expression. His work is also permeated by a love of the outdoors and nature. His work can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Museum of Modern Art, NY, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, as well as many other museums and private collections. Booth would maintain his residence in Minneapolis until his death in 1980.

https://cdm16120.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/fineart/id/754/rec/1

St. Catherines University Library and Archives

1922-1923

St. Catherine University

This image may not be reproduced for any reason without the express written consent of the St. Catherine University. Contact the Visual Resources Library regarding rights to this collection. 651-690-6639

12.5 x 16.5 in

English

Panting, Oil

2013.0.1437