Oil on linen canvas, 1940. 635x762 mm; 25x30 inches. Signed "A. R. Freelon" in oil, lower right recto. Titled, dated and dedicated "To Sarah and Sam" in oil, lower right verso.
Provenance: private collection, Pennsylvania (1940), acquired directly from the artist; thence by descent, private collection, Pennyslvania.
This colorful, rural scene is an excellent example of Allan Freelon's mid-career landscape painting and his distinctive impressionist approach. Raised in a middle-class family in Philadelphia, in 1912, Allan Freelon was the first African American awarded a four-year scholarship to the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. He then received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MFA from Temple University. During World War I, Freelon joined the U.S. Army, serving as Second Lieutenant. Upon his return to Philadelphia, he worked as the Art Supervisor for the Philadelphia Board of Education, while also creating his own artwork. By 1921, he had his first solo show at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, and in 1929, he was one of the featured artists in the Harmon Foundation traveling exhibition.
Beginning in the late 1920s, Allan Freelon spent summers in Gloucester, MA. Freelon's impressionist style of painting first developed during his time studying at Hugh Breckenridge's art school in Gloucester, MA. He later studied Impressionism at the Barnes Foundation from 1927-1929. In the 1940s, he made Windy Crest in Telford, Pennsylvania his summer residence. Freelon taught at the Philadelphia Public Schools, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and at the Philadelphia Print Club. He became the first African American to serve as Assistant Director of Art in the Philadelphia Public School System.
