Sunday Afternoon
Oil on canvas
48 1/8 x 52 1/8 inches
1929
As published in:
Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection
Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review
As exhibited in:
Painting the Park: Art, Community and the Making of a National Park, 2022–2023, Tennessee State Museum, Nashville
Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection, 2015–2018, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tennessee; Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia; McKissick Museum of Art at the University of South Carolina, Columbia; Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia; Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts at Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Known as the “Painter of the Smokies,” Rudolph Ingerle believed his scenic landscapes advanced the effort to establish the Smoky Mountains as a national park. Sunday Afternoon may be a tribute to his literary counterpart, Horace Kephart, whose volume Our Southern Highlanders documented his experiences living in the mountains of western North Carolina. The tall central figure with a walking stick and high boots wears a broad-brimmed hat not unlike the one that the writer usually donned.
Almost square, the canvas with its intense colors, tactile surface, and closed-off perspective is reminiscent of the work of such French Post-Impressionists as Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne.
Other works by this artist