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East Bound Freight
193820th century
34 1/4 x 44 1/8 in. (87 x 112.1 cm)
Dale Nichols, American, (1904–1995)
Object Type:
Paintings
Creation Place:
North America, United States
Medium and Support:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Carleton College Art Collection, gift of Hal Higdon, class of 1953
Accession Number:
2005.025
Dale Nichols is a Regionalist painter from Nebraska who came of age artistically in the 1930s. Nichols denied that he was responsible for bringing attention to his native state. Instead he quipped, “Dale Nichols did not put Nebraska on the map; Nebraska put Dale Nichols on the map.” The East Bound Freight is a visual hymn to Nebraska’s vast horizontal landscape. Blanketed in snow, this land was traversed by the railroad, which tied rural America together throughout the heartland.
Hal Higdon was inspired to give the painting to Carleton by news of a future museum facility. The East Bound Freight is one of several works by Nichols owned by the Higdon family. Higdon’s father, once editor of an industrial magazine in Chicago, frequently employed Nichols as a freelance illustrator. The donor remembers this painting as a fixture in the family living room through his childhood and while a student at Carleton.
Dale Nichols served as art editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica during the 1940s. This work is thereby connected to a small but significant group of American paintings from the same period given to Carleton by William Benton, one-time CEO of Encyclopedia Britannica.
Keywords
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This object has the following keywords:
20th Century,
21st Century,
American*,
canvas*,
Contemporary*,
oil (substance)*,
oil painting (technique)*,
oil paintings (visual works)*,
paintings (visual works)*
- 20th Century
- 21st Century
- American - Refers to the context of or associated specifically with the modern political entity of the United States of America.
- canvas - Closely woven textile made in various weights, usually of flax, hemp, jute, or cotton, used especially for sails, tarpaulins, awnings, upholstery, and as a support for oil painting. Also used for a latticelike mesh made of similar material, used as a needlepoint foundation.
- Contemporary - Refers to painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and architecture dating from the recent past and present. It differs from modern art in that the term 'contemporary art' does not carry the implication of a non-traditional style, but instead refers only to the time period in which the work was created. 'Modern' and 'contemporary' are inherently fluid terms. The term 'contemporary' is sometimes more narrowly used to refer to art from ca. 1960 or 1970 up to the present.
- oil (substance) - General term for a wide variety of viscous liquids (or easily liquefiable on warming) that are both combustible and immiscible in water. The character of oils may be mineral (e.g., paraffin), vegetable (e.g., linseed), animal (e.g., fish), essential (e.g., turpentine), or edible (e.g., olive).
- oil painting (technique) - The art or practice of producing creative works in oil paint, which is pigment suspended in vegetal drying oils. It dates from at least the Middle Ages in Europe, and was widely adopted for easel painting by the fifteenth century.
- oil paintings (visual works) - Creative works in the medium of oil paint.
- paintings (visual works) - Unique works in which images are formed primarily by the direct application of pigments suspended in oil, water, egg yolk, molten wax, or other liquid, arranged in masses of color, onto a generally two-dimensional surface.
Additional Images
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Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:
- Contemporary American Painting , 9/1/2017 - 3/14/2018
Dimensions
- outer frame Dimensions: 34 1/4 x 44 1/8 in. (870 x 1121 mm)
Portfolio List
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This object is a member of the following portfolios:
