Artwork Information

  • Title:

    August Threshing, Iowa

  • Artist:

    Palmer, William C.

  • Artist Bio:

    American, 1906–1987

  • Date:

    1932

  • Medium:

    Tempera on canvas mounted on Masonite

  • Dimensions:

    16 x 20 inches

  • Credit Line:

    Wichita Art Museum, Museum purchase, Friends of the Wichita Art Museum

  • Object Number:

    1983.24

  • Display:

    Not Currently on Display


About the Artwork

One of the dominant movements in American paint­ing during the period of the Great Depression was the so-called American Scene, a movement which empha­sized familiar subject matter, treated in literal terms so as to communicate clearly and widely. Economically, these were despairing times and it is understandable that a nostalgic flavor often found expression in the art of the period, a quality which — especially in the farming regions of the Midwest — celebrated the simple tradi­tional virtues of life close to the soil.

This painting, titled August Threshing, Iowa, was ex­ecuted in 1932 by the Iowa-born artist William Palmer and epitomizes the strong regionalist sentiment of the period. Here the subject is pictorially stated in clearly organized visual language. The land is flat, the horizon is low and the focal point of interest is at the center of the composition where a threshing machine, operated by power transmitted through belts from a steam trac­tor, is shown loading the separated grain kernels onto mule wagons and at the same time ejecting the chaff on­to a mound seen on the left. Throughout the composi­tion, outlines are soft, and colors are subdued, except for the rather vivid red used to emphasize selected parts of the threshing machine. At the same time, the arrange­ment of forms rising diagonally from the swollen mound at the lower left of the barn seen near the distant horizon line at the right, dramatizes the action depicted. In turn, that action is complemented by the fluid pattern of abstract forms in the sky where whirling billows of smoke and fluffy balloon-like clouds with cool-reflected color tones repeat both the forms and the colors seen in the subject below.

American Scene painting is sometimes viewed as an escapist reaction against the machine age in general and more particularly the collapse of the industrial economy of the ’20s. However, that interpretation is hardly valid in a work such as this. For here man is seen not as a vic­tim of the machine but is depicted rather as being in full control of his environment and as achieving productivi­ty by working in harmony not only with nature but also with modern technology.

Such a progressive outlook was actually true of many American Scene painters and especially of William Palmer who throughout most of the 1930s worked ac­tively on various New Deal art projects and came to be especially recognized for his series of murals installed in the Queens General Hospital, New York City, that depicted aspects of preventive medicine and that were used in the instruction of both hospital interns and nurses.

William Palmer was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1906. He studied in France and from 1941 to 1973 served as Director of the Munson-Williams-Proctor In­stitute School of Art in Utica where he remained Direc­tor Emeritus until his death in 1987. Palmer exhibited in numerous exhibitions throughout the nation and is represented in major museum collections both in America and abroad.