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Lot Essay
"[What] should induce such a man as Edward to return again
with eagerness and such application as often keeps him up till
near twelve o clock at night painting pictures - and to make the
thing more glaring has advertised in the Bucks county papers."
John Comly
to Edward Hicks' cousin Isaac Hicks,
June 1817
Painted nearly twenty years after his longtime friend John Comly communicated this sentiment to Edward Hicks' wealthy cousin in New York, this painted carriage cloth image of Andrew Jackson stands in direct contrast to the somewhat more restrained sign and decorative objects that had earlier brought Hicks criticism from the Quaker community. Edward's return to sign and ornamental painting in 1816, in an effort to improve his financial situation, brought with it a source of conflict and consternation for the painter. His open advertisement, seen as promotion of a trade that was in direct disregard for the traditional Quaker codes of usefulness and plainness, seemed incompatible with his devotion as a Quaker minister. His elaborate signboards and painted imagery, fabricated for public display, disturbed the Society of Friends. It can be concluded that whatever resolution took place, Hicks' talent and gift for his ministry, made possible by a successful occupation in ornamental painting justified his pursuit of the trade.
Painted at the height of his career as an easel and sign painter, this composite image of the seventh president of the United States is exuberant and compelling. Discovered in Hicks' workshop after his death, untensioned and rolled, this vibrantly painted square of carriage cloth was mounted onto a solid panel support by the Hicks family in which it descends.
Thought to be derived from Thomas Illman's print of the Henry Hoppner Meyer drawing after Ralph E. W. Earl's presidential portrait, Hicks here again displays his talent for assembling bold descriptive imagery that could be easily identified at a distance. The choice of support, a heavy-weight canvas known as carriage cloth, seems to suggest that its intended purpose was somewhat ephemeral; perhaps a parade sign, political celebration or campaign banner.
When examined alongside contemporary easel works by Hicks, the deployment of pigment is comparatively loose and vigorous, but is possessed of the hallmark calligraphic energy that characterizes Hicks' decorative work of the period. The complex layering of early American iconography that vignettes and draws attention to the portrait image is ingenious in its energy and solidity. There is a deft spontaneity and casualness to his mark-making and an overall use of intense juxtapositions of undiluted color. One of two existing works that can be characterized as flags or banners by Hicks (the other is the Holland Sabbath School banner, ca. 1821 oil on silk, Mercer Museum of the Bucks County Historical Society), this example stands as a singular statement of the unbridled chromatic enthusiasm that might have caused his fellow Society of Friends some of the aforementioned pause.
The Quaker Society principles clearly opposed oppression however, and at the purported time this banner was painted, Andrew Jackson had already enjoyed an illustrious military career, stood as the first president to come from the area west of the Appalachians and the first to gain office by a direct appeal to the mass of voters rather than through backing and support of a recognized political organization. Reelected to his second term in 1832, and having successfully navigated a move by his native South Carolina to nullify the collection of federal protective tariff, thus preserving the integrity of the union against the most serious threat it had yet faced, Jackson was considered the embodiment of democracy and today still, the maker of the modern presidency.
Jackson left the office of the presidency more popular than when he took it. Born in humble circumstances, experienced on the frontier, he possessed a palpable closeness to the mass of the people and a devotion to democracy all of which would have appealed to the ideological devotion of the Quaker painter. That the panel was found stored in Hicks' studio in near pristine condition suggests a more personal association to the object. Its casual, spontaneous execution sets the work apart from any executed for a client or business, even works created for family and friends. This spontaneous "ala prima" rendering is rare indeed when compared to the numerous signboards and decorative objects that display a high degree of detailed execution and finish.
The number of known sign and decorative works that originated from Hicks' studio represents a small fraction of the shop's total body of work. According to his account book, jobs ranged from simple lettering and details applied to various objects to elaborate signboards and landscape firescreens. From this, and the number of known works that were unrecorded in the shop's records,6 and those personal artifacts that remain in the Hicks family collections, we can surmise a range of projects, some even approaching decorative or pictorial ephemera would have completed the full dimension of Edward Hicks' shop production. This spirited survival is one of those rare examples.
with eagerness and such application as often keeps him up till
near twelve o clock at night painting pictures - and to make the
thing more glaring has advertised in the Bucks county papers."
John Comly
to Edward Hicks' cousin Isaac Hicks,
June 1817
Painted nearly twenty years after his longtime friend John Comly communicated this sentiment to Edward Hicks' wealthy cousin in New York, this painted carriage cloth image of Andrew Jackson stands in direct contrast to the somewhat more restrained sign and decorative objects that had earlier brought Hicks criticism from the Quaker community. Edward's return to sign and ornamental painting in 1816, in an effort to improve his financial situation, brought with it a source of conflict and consternation for the painter. His open advertisement, seen as promotion of a trade that was in direct disregard for the traditional Quaker codes of usefulness and plainness, seemed incompatible with his devotion as a Quaker minister. His elaborate signboards and painted imagery, fabricated for public display, disturbed the Society of Friends. It can be concluded that whatever resolution took place, Hicks' talent and gift for his ministry, made possible by a successful occupation in ornamental painting justified his pursuit of the trade.
Painted at the height of his career as an easel and sign painter, this composite image of the seventh president of the United States is exuberant and compelling. Discovered in Hicks' workshop after his death, untensioned and rolled, this vibrantly painted square of carriage cloth was mounted onto a solid panel support by the Hicks family in which it descends.
Thought to be derived from Thomas Illman's print of the Henry Hoppner Meyer drawing after Ralph E. W. Earl's presidential portrait, Hicks here again displays his talent for assembling bold descriptive imagery that could be easily identified at a distance. The choice of support, a heavy-weight canvas known as carriage cloth, seems to suggest that its intended purpose was somewhat ephemeral; perhaps a parade sign, political celebration or campaign banner.
When examined alongside contemporary easel works by Hicks, the deployment of pigment is comparatively loose and vigorous, but is possessed of the hallmark calligraphic energy that characterizes Hicks' decorative work of the period. The complex layering of early American iconography that vignettes and draws attention to the portrait image is ingenious in its energy and solidity. There is a deft spontaneity and casualness to his mark-making and an overall use of intense juxtapositions of undiluted color. One of two existing works that can be characterized as flags or banners by Hicks (the other is the Holland Sabbath School banner, ca. 1821 oil on silk, Mercer Museum of the Bucks County Historical Society), this example stands as a singular statement of the unbridled chromatic enthusiasm that might have caused his fellow Society of Friends some of the aforementioned pause.
The Quaker Society principles clearly opposed oppression however, and at the purported time this banner was painted, Andrew Jackson had already enjoyed an illustrious military career, stood as the first president to come from the area west of the Appalachians and the first to gain office by a direct appeal to the mass of voters rather than through backing and support of a recognized political organization. Reelected to his second term in 1832, and having successfully navigated a move by his native South Carolina to nullify the collection of federal protective tariff, thus preserving the integrity of the union against the most serious threat it had yet faced, Jackson was considered the embodiment of democracy and today still, the maker of the modern presidency.
Jackson left the office of the presidency more popular than when he took it. Born in humble circumstances, experienced on the frontier, he possessed a palpable closeness to the mass of the people and a devotion to democracy all of which would have appealed to the ideological devotion of the Quaker painter. That the panel was found stored in Hicks' studio in near pristine condition suggests a more personal association to the object. Its casual, spontaneous execution sets the work apart from any executed for a client or business, even works created for family and friends. This spontaneous "ala prima" rendering is rare indeed when compared to the numerous signboards and decorative objects that display a high degree of detailed execution and finish.
The number of known sign and decorative works that originated from Hicks' studio represents a small fraction of the shop's total body of work. According to his account book, jobs ranged from simple lettering and details applied to various objects to elaborate signboards and landscape firescreens. From this, and the number of known works that were unrecorded in the shop's records,6 and those personal artifacts that remain in the Hicks family collections, we can surmise a range of projects, some even approaching decorative or pictorial ephemera would have completed the full dimension of Edward Hicks' shop production. This spirited survival is one of those rare examples.