Jose De Creeft, Portrait of
Poor, Henry Varnum
about 1948
Artwork Information
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Title:
Jose De Creeft, Portrait of
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Artist:
Poor, Henry Varnum
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Artist Bio:
American, 1887–1970
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Date:
about 1948
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Medium:
Oil on canvas
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Dimensions:
30 1/8 x 20 1/4 inches
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Credit Line:
Wichita Art Museum, Gift of Peter Poor, in memory of his father, the artist Henry Varnum Poor
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Object Number:
2007.46.3
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Display:
Not Currently on Display
About the Artwork
Kansas-born Henry Varnum Poor was an architect, painter, sculptor, muralist, and potter. In 1946, he helped to found Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, an artist colony in Maine. There, he met fellow artists Jose De Creeft, William Zorach, and Karl Knaths, who came to the school to teach. Poor painted them all, though he did not include any of the traditional trappings that would signify their profession—easels, paintbrushes, or sculpting chisels. Instead, each man is depicted in the posture of an intellectual with prominent heads, broad brows, and far-away, searching looks. In this series of portraits, Poor painted them as men of ideas rather than craftsmen or artists.