Cabins, South Carolina Low Country

A latecomer to painting, William Silva began his studies at the Académie Julian when he was forty-seven, in 1906. Upon his return to America, he explored his native South and was active in Southern art organizations.

The timeworn cabins of this unidentified plantation, framed by equally bedraggled trees, reveal Depression-era conditions. A lone figure on the left makes her way across the painting. Here, Silva departs from his usual idyllic garden scenery to consider, for a moment, an altogether earthly and faded plantation view, seen beneath an unrelenting clear light.