Soon after completing his studies in New York City, Moore returned to Connecticut, finding artistic inspiration throughout the state, but especially in his hometown of Kensington. Painted in 1865, N. A. Moore's House and Barn illustrates the artist's home, located just north of his father's residence on High Road. Moore conceived and began building the ‘Stonehouse’ in the early 1860s using poured concrete leftover from his ancestors’ hydraulic cement mill, where he had himself worked before pursuing his artistic studies. The land also contained an active farm, with the children helping milk cows and plant crops alongside hired workers, while Mrs. Moore tended to the home’s necessary upkeep. The artist was devoted to his family, but felt his time in Kensington was best spent sketching and painting to support them: “He would go out in a meadow, set up an easel, and stand there in a white suit and a white hat…His wife would have to go and drag him in for supper. So long as it was light out, he was there to capture it.”[1] Like much of his work, N. A. Moore’s House and Barn is small in scale yet demonstrates the artist’s talent for conveying the atmosphere of a season and for capturing the minutest of details in an intimate space. From the golden leaves of the autumn trees, to the woodpile set neatly alongside the barn, to the stonework and filigree gable of the homestead of his own design, the image exudes the quietude and peace of life in Kensington.

More information about this painting...

Provenance:

By descent through the artist’s family

With Vose Galleries, Boston, inventory no. NAM-21, 1990

To private collection, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, November 1990 to present

Inscription:

(in pencil on backing board) Not for Sale / The Artist N. A. Moore house + barn / 1865 / Turkey Hill showing in the distance / NAM

Labels:

Previous Vose Galleries label, inventory no. NAM-21

Literature:

Fletcher, Ellen. Nelson Augustus Moore. (Moore Picture Trust, 1994), Illus. page 30

Exhibitions:

Nelson Augustus Moore (1824-1902), Vose Galleries, Boston, November 7, 1990 – February 9, 1991, illus. page 16