Just in to the gallery – “Smoke Houses” by Eric Sloane, N.A..  This charmer is from Eric’s 1966 book “An Age of Barns”.  The book was a first for Eric Sloane in many ways, but the two most significant were that it was his first “coffee table” sized book, and it was arguably his first real tour de force in large, fully rendered pen and ink illustration.  As evident here, Eric could turn a seemingly mundane aspect of early American vernacular architecture (anything from outhouses to smoke houses!) into a fascinating, entertaining, educational, and charming drawing.  Interestingly, Eric almost always created illustrations to size, meaning that he had a good idea of how much space on a page he would have on a finished, published book, and worked his drawings to that size.  One of the aspects of illustrations I love from An Age of Barns is that they are all large, much larger than the finished space they occupy in the published book.  Whether Eric was ensuring that the published drawings retained a higher level of detail – or if the original idea was to print An Ag of Barns in a larger size (or both) – his pen and ink illustrations created for the book are magnificent.  Note also the incorporation of a lined and signed mat.

Here is the last of the four seasons depicted by Eric Sloane, N.A. in a series of pen and ink illustrations new to the gallery – Autumn. Those who know Eric’s works well will recognize this as a familiar scene for the artist in both illustrations and in oils. The old wheelbarrow parked under the apple tree, gathering the last of the apples the tree has to offer. Usually, as in this illustration, there are apples to be seen on the ground about the wheelbarrow, suggesting, perhaps, that the wheelbarrow was more or less parked under the tree to catch the last of the falling apples.

Here is the third of the four original pen and ink illustrations in the series of seasons by Eric Sloane, N.A., all recent arrivals at The Gallery@Weather Hill.
You may have noticed that this pen and ink, along with the earlier ones posted of “Winter” and “Spring”, show a rounded border. This is because Eric created these for a set of plates to be struck by the original Medallic Art Company. It does not appear that these plates were made in great quantity – if at all. We have the plate for “Autumn”, “Spring”, and “Winter”, but there are no markings on the verso of any of the plates. The family from which these plates came were the original founders of Medallic, and believed that the lack of the company name, logo and production numbers on the verso signifies that these plates were never produced. Followers of “things Sloane” may recognize an uncanny resemblance to “The Four Seasons” plates struck later in pewter by the International Silver Company of Meriden, CT.

        The last post was “Winter” by Eric Sloane, N.A., appropriate for the weather of that day.  Today, we’re noticing the tulips and daffodils are tentatively pushing their way out of the soil.  Temperatures here are expected to exceed 50 degrees today, so we thought we would post “Spring” this morning.  We were fortunate to be able to purchase a small collection of pen and inks by the artist – we’ll try to post some this week.  Enjoy the snow!