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Cabins, South Carolina Low Country

Oil on canvas mounted on masonite
25 1/8 x 30 inches
1935

As published in: 
Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection

As exhibited in:
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

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 makes her way at the left. 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. 

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