Arthur Pope (Cleveland, 1880 - 1974, Westport, Massachusetts)
Nasturtiums at Fenway Court, 1919
Oil on canvas, canvas: 17 11/16 x 7 7/8 in. (45 x 20 cm)
This is a vertical water color in a simple black frame. It depicts vines of nasturtiums hanging from a window ledge against the backdrop of a plaster wall awash in soft pastels of pink, blue and purple. At the top and center of this painting, we see the lower portion of a square window with a dark interior, painted in deep purple and blue. A balcony or ledge sits in front of the window. Four long straight vines with stylized, bright orange flowers rendered with smears and dashes of paint and combined with dabs of green and blue gracefully cascade from the window’s ledge, spilling over the balcony to a window directly below. Only the top portion of the window is visible. It’s shaped like three lobes of a clover leaf and painted in a dark purple hue.
Macknight Room
Commentary
On one of his visits to the Museum, Arthur Pope, a color theorist and professor of art at Harvard University, painted the annual spring display of bright orange flowering nasturtium vines. Isabella grew the plants at her home Green Hill, in Brookline, Massachusetts and hung them in the Courtyard around her birthday, April 14, a tradition which continues today.