Western & Contemporary Native American Art

Provenance:

Mongerson Wunderlich Galleries, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1992

Literature:

Outdoor Life, September, 1927, Cover illustration.

Larry Len Peterson, Philip R. Goodwin: America’s Sporting and Wildlife Artist. Hayden, ID: CDA Art Auction, 2001. p. 224, illustrated.

I was once visiting a town lined with gift and souvenir shops. In the window of one, a wooden plaque extolled the virtues of camping and canoeing. I did a double take. The printed image of two men in plaid, paddling on a pine-ringed lake was a copy of a famous Philip R. Goodwin painting.  I realized then that Goodwin’s influence on the American idea of “The Great Outdoors” is so pervasive that many Americans, when they dream of getting away to the woods, imagine scenes straight out of Goodwin’s canvases. Goodwin’s paintings made their way into the American unconscious through magazine covers, illustrations, advertising, and calendars. You might say Goodwin created the aesthetic that arose through LL Bean, Pendleton, and the Hudson Bay Company. In this, Goodwin ought to be counted among the very few artists - among them N. C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell - who helped shape the national stories we tell about ourselves. The stories that blur history and heroism, reality and romance. The stories that define us as a people. Goodwin’s images - much like Thomas Moran’s - run right alongside our National Parks and our notions of wilderness.

Making For Camp is a classic, vintage Goodwin painting. It is quite a trudge, dragging your kit while seeking out a new place to camp, but the scenery, sport, company, and peacefullness make it worthwhile. With the right partner and canoe mate, you develop a rhythm in the woods - who is responsible for what, and in what order - and after some time, you fall into a wordless pattern: It’s dusk, soon to be dark. I drag the tent, you unpack the rest of the gear. There’s a peaceful sequence to things here in the natural world, in time outside of normal time. Goodwin captures this feeling of peace in a single image.

One of Howard Pyle’s most celebrated students, and one of the great American artists to emerge from the Brandywine School that also boasts alumni N.C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, W.H.D. Koerner and many others, Philip Goodwin made his name early in his career illustrating classic works like Theodore Roosevelt’s African Game Trails and Jack London’s Call of the Wild. A New York native, Goodwin spent summers in the American West, camping, hunting, fishing, and gathering reference material. Along the way, he became close friends with Charles Russell and Carl Rungius. Goodwin’s inimitable paintings call to mind the smells of pine forests and campfires, fresh trout sizzling beside thick slabs of bacon, and campfire coffee.

- James D. Balestrieri