Homage to Newton

by AnnaJo Vahle

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Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

20.000 x 16.000 x 1.000 inches

Title

Homage to Newton

Artist

AnnaJo Vahle

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Canvas

Description

I signed this painting on June 29, 2019. Since then, I have varnished it and photographed it. It is a 16 inch by 20 inch stretched canvas. I got the idea for this from a Harold Newton painting.

Newton (1934-1994) was an American landscape artist. He was a founding member of the Florida Highwaymen. Newton depicted Florida's coastlines and wetlands. He was successful in a time of racial segregation and disenfranchisement.

The Highwaymen, also referred to as the Florida Highwaymen, are a group of 26 African American landscape artists in Florida. Taught by Alfred “Beanie” Backus, they created a body of work of over 200,000 paintings. This was despite facing many racial and cultural barriers. Mostly from the Fort Pierce area, they painted landscapes and made a living selling them door-to-door to businesses and individuals throughout Florida from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. They also peddled their work from the trunks of their cars along the eastern coastal roads (A1A and US 1).

Sometimes characterized as motel art, the work is a hybrid form of landscape painting. It evolved from the classically influenced ideals of the Highwaymen's white mentor, A. E. Backus. Today they are recognized as the work of American folk artists.

The popular account of the Highwaymen story has portrayed Harold Newton as the story's chief protagonist. Admirers of Highwaymen art align Newton with Backus. Newton may indeed have been a great painter, but the most compelling story about the Highwaymen is not about great painting. It is about young black friends who, as few others of their era have done, survived, prevailed, and left a legacy about their time and place.

When I first moved to Florida, I heard from quite a few people that my paintings sometimes reminded them of the Highwaymen. I had never heard of them. I eventually met a few of them while participating in various art shows and venues throughout the state. I decided that it was high time for me to honor them.

I didn't copy any of their work but tried, in this painting, to create and homage by emulating Newton's style and subject. I made up the composition from my own imagination. I added the white heron to the scene because I noticed that many of Newton's paintings had one of more of them in such paintings.

Although the Highwaymen painted in oil, I painted this using acrylic paints. To be exact, I used slow-drying acrylics so that I could stretch the paint and blend them as Newton did.

As I painted this, I felt at peace. I enjoyed the experience of painting the type of scene that I see so often in this beautiful state of Florida.

8/15/21..3d place win in the Sunsets contest!

Uploaded

July 30th, 2019

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