Page 120 - TheRussellCatalogue2017

1⁄3⁄154 FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON (1874–1939) Down rough the Canyon, 1931 oil 15 x 11 1⁄2 inches
PROVENANCE
$70,000–100,000
• Norman and Mary Barstow Rockwell
• Carroll O’Connor
• Private collection, John Fields
Since its completion in 1931, Down rough the Canyon has had only two owners, both prominent artists of national importance—the painter Norman Rockwell and the actor Carroll O’Connor, known to many as the TV personality Archie Bunker. O’Connor’s widow, Nancy, bequeathed the painting to her brother, John Fields.
is painting was a late wedding gift to Norman and Mary Barstow Rockwell; the couple married on April 17, 1930, in Alhambra, California, but the painting is dated 1931, so at least seven or eight months had passed between the couple’s wedding day and the Johnsons’ gift. e inscription on the back reads, “Painted expressly for Norman and Mary Rockwell,” and indicates that both Johnson and his wife Vinnie gave the painting to the newlyweds. It appears that both Johnson and Rockwell were pleased with the painting.
e Johnsons and the Rockwells were close neighbors in Alhambra, and they often visited each other in their respective studios. It may even have been in Rockwell’s studio that Johnson became inspired with the painting’s subject. In the months leading up to the Rockwell wedding, Norman was busy with a commission from e Saturday Evening Post. His model was actor Gary Cooper, who was volunteered for the job by Paramount Studios, which had just produced e Texan, in which
he starred. Cooper was already a high pro le Western movie star because of his leading role in e Virginian, which had premiered in November 1929. ere is speculation that the appearance in the neighborhood of a celebrated Hollywood movie star like Cooper may have been in e ect memorialized in Johnson’s Down rough the Canyon, but via the dramatic nocturnal depiction of Indians rather than cowboys.
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