Speech Near Brewery

Label

Speech Near Brewery is a preeminent example of Paul Sample’s early California period, during which he often explored social realist themes in semi-abstracted urban settings. The focal point in this ambitious work is the propagandist delivering an impassioned speech on a soapbox to a small gathering crowd of male, possibly unemployed, listeners. The image thereby acknowledges the pressing social concerns and politically charged climate of the depression era—common subjects for artists active in the 1930s. However, the painting’s clear, warm palette, cheerful caricature-like figuration, and strong geometric underpinnings are more revealing of Sample’s delight with pattern and color and his generalized human interest than his promotion of a burning social agenda.

After serving as the chairman of the art department at the University of Southern California, Paul Sample, Class of 1920, returned to Dartmouth in 1938 as artist-in-residence, a position he held until his retirement in 1962. He is known especially for his regionalist images of New England’s bucolic landscape and colorful small.

From the 2019 exhibition American Art, Colonial to Modern, curated by Barbara J. MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art

Course History

ITAL 1, Introductory Italian I, Scott Millspaugh, Spring 2014

Exhibition History

13th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1933.

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 20 -September 12, 2021.

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26-July 21, 2019.

Celebrating Twenty Years: Gifts in Honor of the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 11-December 12, 2005.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 12, 2013.

Paul Sample, Painter of the American Scene, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 4-August 28, 1988.

Paul Sample: Ivy League Regionalist, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, January 18-February 26, 1984.

Publication History

Katherine W. Hart et al., Celebrating Twenty Years: Gifts in Honor of the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2005, pp. 64, ill. p. 65, cat. no. 23.

Paul Sample, Painter of the American Scene, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, 1988, number 11, p. 20, 89, illustrated.

Provenance

Capricorn Galleries, Bethesada, Maryland; sold to Judith D. and Charles H. Hood (1929-2016), Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, date unknown; lent to present collection, 2010; given to present collection, 2017.

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