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This is an interesting and unusual example of a folk art genre scene. Unlike most folk genres, the focus of the painting is not visually emphasized. Rather it is ambiguous and hidden. In portraying people, folk artists tend to show the faces of their characters, who were often neighbors and friends, easily identifiable. It is notable that in "York Springs Graveyard," none of the people face the viewer.
BibliographyJean Lipman and Alice Winchester, The Flowering of American Folk Art, 1776-1876, New York: Viking Press in cooperation with Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974, p. 67.
Artist
Robert Fibich
(1820 - 1878)
Scene at Odd Fellows Cemetery, Tamaqua, Pennsylvania
Datec. 1875
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 24 3/16 × 30 7/16 × 2 in. (61.4 × 77.3 × 5.1 cm)
Sight: 17 5/16 × 23 1/2 in. (44 × 59.7 cm)
Object numberN0035.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextThis painting of a group of townspeople awaiting the arrival of a carriage was known as “York Springs Graveyard” by R. Fibich for decades. In 2008, researcher Judith Pyle found documentation for the artist, Robert Fibich, in the local historical society archives and identified the cemetery as the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Tamaqua based on the distinctive triangular plots on the left side of the painting. Fibich was born in Prussia, lived in Reading, and moved to Tamaqua in 1865, just a few years before this painting was done. The precise meaning of the gathering depicted is still a mystery.This is an interesting and unusual example of a folk art genre scene. Unlike most folk genres, the focus of the painting is not visually emphasized. Rather it is ambiguous and hidden. In portraying people, folk artists tend to show the faces of their characters, who were often neighbors and friends, easily identifiable. It is notable that in "York Springs Graveyard," none of the people face the viewer.
BibliographyJean Lipman and Alice Winchester, The Flowering of American Folk Art, 1776-1876, New York: Viking Press in cooperation with Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974, p. 67.
On View
On view
1915
