Landscape
MARVIN D. CONE (1891–1965)
River Bend, No. 4, 1938
Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 in.
Signed (at lower left): Marvin / Cone
RECORDED: Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, January 1938, p. 1 illus. // Joseph S. Czestochowski, Marvin D. Cone and Grant Wood: An American Tradition (1989), pp. 32, 71 illus. in color, 113 no. 75 // Joseph S. Czestochowski, Marvin D. Cone: Art as Self-Portrait (1990), p. 115 no. 335 illus. in color
EXHIBITED: Municipal Art Galleries, New York, 1938, Third Annual National Exhibition of American Art, Summer Festival, no. 187 // Memorial Union, Iowa State College, Ames, 1939, Twelve Paintings by Marvin Cone, no. 10 // Armstrong Hall of Fine Arts, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, 1939, Fifteen Paintings by Marvin Cone, no. 7 // Stewart Memorial Art Library, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1939, Coe College Commencement, no. 6 // Iowa Union Lounge, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1939, Exhibition of Paintings by Grant Wood and Marvin Cone, no. 13 // Cedar Rapids Art Association, Iowa, 1939, An Exhibition of Paintings by Marvin Cone, no. 39
ON DEPOSIT: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa, 1980–2000
EX COLL.: the artist; to estate of the artist; to Cedar Rapids Country Club, Iowa, about 1965 to 2000; to sale, Jackson’s Auctioneers, Cedar Falls, Iowa, November 29, 2000, lot 147; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 2000]; to private collection, California, 2001 until the present
In January 1938, around the time River Bend, No. 4 was completed, Cone offered a rare insight into his views on art, when he stated:
The purpose of art is not to reproduce life, but to present an editorial, a comment on life.... The artist does not set out to imitate nature. What would be the purpose of that? Let the camera with its clever mechanism imitate. Art, such as poetry, music, and painting, is simply a portion of the experience of the artist. When we actually see ideals, they become real to us. Art traces an abstraction and makes it audible or visual. It symbolizes the whole of life. We believe in something we can see (Cedar Rapids Gazette, January 19, 1938, p. 15, as quoted in Joseph S. Czestochowski, Marvin D. Cone: An American Tradition [1985], p. 6).
Cone’s commitment to his own artistic vision remained with him throughout his career.
In 1935, while enjoying an afternoon picnic on the bluffs above the Cedar River, a few miles north of Cedar Rapids, Cone made a series of pencil sketches of the expansive landscape before him. These sketches soon evolved into a series of about fifteen canvases known as the “River Bend” series, which he executed between 1935 and 1940. The present work belongs to this series. About Cone’s River Bend paintings, Joseph S. Czestochowski has written:
The River Bend landscapes sought a precise balance between rendering specific geographic reference and evoking a generalized response to a scene…. Through his synthesis of the classic landscape, his elimination of nonessential details, and his overall harmony, he has idealized the present. This motif, like his earlier clouds, somehow became his personal vehicle for introspection. This pursuit would occupy him for most of the years to come (Czestochowski, Marvin D. Cone: Art as Self-Portrait [1990], pp. 28–29).
The River Bend series is one of the most important and memorable components of Cone’s oeuvre. River Bend, No. 4 was painted in January 1938, about six months before the artist began his year-long sabbatical from Coe College. Like the other works from this series, Cone concentrates on the rounded contours and gentle topography of the Iowa countryside. Characteristically, Cone has avoided the inclusion of figures, which sets him apart from Grant Wood and the Regionalists, whose works often included figures as a means of illustrating the Midwestern lifestyle that they so idealized. Although in River Bend, No. 4 a few man-made buildings are present, thereby indicating the presence of man within this natural setting, man is not the subject here. The picture is more of a personal, contemplative look at the formal beauty of the vast expanse of the Iowa landscape.
