Painting of the Week: “Untitled, Undated”

Mar 18, 2023 | Articles & Exhibits, Photo

Every week during the exhibit “Aurora’s Own Ruth Van Sickle Ford,” we will feature one of the more than two dozen watercolor and oil paintings on display from March 3-May 13, 2023, at the Pierce Art and History Center. Accompanying the images will be commentary by the world’s foremost Ford expert, her biographer Nancy Smith Hopp, and also art conservator and Aurora Historical Society museum assistant Scott Sherwood. We hope you will be engaged and enlightened by this feature and that you will come to the Pierce Center to see the paintings up close and personal. Exhibit hours are listed below.

Untitled, Undated

This oil painting, probably produced prior to 1940, seems to have a split personality.  The vase is heavy and cautiously rendered with strong, simple strokes of the brush in a few shades of vivid blue.  The flowers, on the other hand, are masterfully rendered and nearly fly off the canvas in a dazzling mashup of garden colors.  Since mostly Mrs. Ford’s floral containers were not given a lot of prominence,  does this mean someone else, possibly a student, painted this vase?  Mrs. Ford was known, in the classroom, to *improve* the work of her students.  We’ll probably never know, but what is art without mystery. 

Scott Sherwood, Art Conservator and Museum Assistant

March 2023

Aurora’s Own Ruth Van Sickle Ford

Through paintings and other information, we'll be telling the story about this lifelong Auroran (1897-1989), an award-winning artist and teacher, known best for her watercolors. Also featured will be information on the "Round House" the house that she and her husband Sam had designed by futuristic architect Bruce Goff. ...
22 Mar
12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
David L. Pierce Art & History Center
20 East Downer Place, Aurora, IL 60505

Aurora’s Own Ruth Van Sickle Ford

Through paintings and other information, we'll be telling the story about this lifelong Auroran (1897-1989), an award-winning artist and teacher, known best for her watercolors. Also featured will be information on the "Round House" the house that she and her husband Sam had designed by futuristic architect Bruce Goff. ...
23 Mar
12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
David L. Pierce Art & History Center
20 East Downer Place, Aurora, IL 60505

Aurora’s Own Ruth Van Sickle Ford

Through paintings and other information, we'll be telling the story about this lifelong Auroran (1897-1989), an award-winning artist and teacher, known best for her watercolors. Also featured will be information on the "Round House" the house that she and her husband Sam had designed by futuristic architect Bruce Goff. ...
24 Mar
12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
David L. Pierce Art & History Center
20 East Downer Place, Aurora, IL 60505

Aurora’s Own Ruth Van Sickle Ford

Through paintings and other information, we'll be telling the story about this lifelong Auroran (1897-1989), an award-winning artist and teacher, known best for her watercolors. Also featured will be information on the "Round House" the house that she and her husband Sam had designed by futuristic architect Bruce Goff. ...
25 Mar
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
David L. Pierce Art & History Center
20 East Downer Place, Aurora, IL 60505
No event found!
Load More

Warning: Undefined array key "display_credit_url" in /homepages/39/d199883942/htdocs/clickandbuilds/AuroraHistoricalSociety/wp-content/plugins/modern-events-calendar/app/libraries/skins.php on line 2352

Pin It on Pinterest