Art That Makes Me Homesick

I have a few favorite "classical" artists.  One is Mary Cassatt.  She painted women and women with children.  This is the one I like best and it is titled "The Bath".  I saw it in person at The Art Institute of Chicago. 

Mary Cassatt died in June 14, 1926.  I have a very much alive favorite "classical" artist too.  His name is Jon Crane (photograph from Heartland Americana).

He paints pictures that remind me of growing up in a small town in rural Minnesota.  I get a little homesick when I see the cornfields, farm houses, abandoned schools, a lonely tree on a prairie......  Here are three of my favorites (sorry about the glare - my resident photographer has gone up north).

 I don't have a name for the painting on the top but the middle one is called "September Moon" and the one on the bottom is called "Stone School near Whitewood, South Dakota".  I also have a book his wife wrote about him.

It's a wonderful book that chronicles Jon Crane's artwork and his life.  It's full of his paintings and stories about those paintings, stories about his travels, life with his wife, his gallery openings and closings and a host of other information.

While visiting the Black Hills this summer, we stayed in a little town called Hill City.  I was surprised and excited to find that there on main street in this little town was a Jon Crane Gallery.  They had many prints of his paintings and bottles of wine labeled with some of his prints.  I bought one for a souvenir.

I'm hoping to add to my Jon Crane collection.  I have many more of his prints on my wish list - "Snowy Sanctuary", "Anderson Ranch"and "In Quiet Wonder" to name a few.  On my Christmas list will be "Chores Can Wait" - I'd like to live in this painting!  I guess you could say I'm one for nostalgia and wide open spaces.

"The further from the masses and the closer to a fishing stream I get, the more at peace I become.  The further from the main roads and the deeper into the outback that stream may be, the closer you would be to understanding me and any meaning you might want to ascribe to my art."  -Jon Crane