Roger Norman Medearis (American, 1920-2001) Milking Time, 1947 Egg tempera on bo

Lot description

Roger Norman Medearis (American, 1920-2001) Milking Time, 1947 Egg tempera on board 14 x 18 inches (35.6 x 45.7 cm) Signed and dated lower right: Medearis 1947 Signed, dated, titled, and inscribed on the reverse: Milking Time / Egg tempera / Roger Medearis / 1947 Property of an Important Midwestern Collector PROVENANCE: Berry-Hill Galleries, New York; Doyle, New York, April 4, 2018, lot 27; Acquired by the present owner from the above. Roger Norman Medearis, the shy son of a Baptist minister, studied painting from 1938 to 1941 at the Kansas City Art Institute with the most dynamic, outspoken, larger than-life member of the Regionalist triumvirate, Thomas Hart Benton. At first blush the two men couldn't be more different, although they were both native Missourians. While Benton loved his bourbon, Medearis avoided alcohol. While Benton was never afraid to sound off, Medearis tended to keep his own counsel. But both men had much more profound things in common, which united them as kindred artistic temperaments: they were hard and steady workers, thoughtful and well-read, and believed that the subjects of America—its landscape, its peoples, its struggles—were not only important but large and worthy themes for high art. Medearis came to the Art Institute bucking the serious reservations of his family and set to work with extraordinary commitment. He took every course Benton offered although, interestingly, he was too reticent to make his own paintings in Benton's classroom. He painted privately in his room and brought his finished pieces to class. Medearis' intensity and penchant for meticulous craftsmanship were not lost on Benton, who considered the young man one of his finest students and included his paintings in the 1941 exhibition of his students' work at the galleries of Associated American Artists in New York. Under Benton's influence, Roger Medearis studied the methods of the Old Masters including making clay models as preparatory studies for multifigural compositions, tilting up the picture plane as a strategy for accommodating a very readable spatial composition, and using egg tempera as a painting medium which dries quickly, is durable, and has a lovely soft sheen (something Benton himself used until he developed an allergy to eggs). Although he was deeply affected by Benton's brand of Regionalism with its strong volumes, bold compositional structure, and undulating rhythms, Medearis was no slavish copyist of Benton. Rather, his American imagery was quieter and more personal, focused less on overt social criticism than on subjects drawn from memories of farms he lived on, landscapes he visited, and crazy family reunions he probably witnessed from a Roger Medearis-like distance. Additionally, as the artist himself remarked, he worked slowly and meticulously, and disliked sharp edges—qualities which give his work a higher level or polish than most of Benton's paintings. Medearis also preferred a golden tone to his imagery, which characterizes the present work, Milking Time. World War II interrupted Roger Medearis' education and career, but after the War he and his young family settled in Connecticut where he set about becoming a serious professional artist. The stars seemed to be aligned. He soon began enjoying critical success, was the subject of several one-person exhibitions in New York in the late 1940s, and in 1950, his painting Family Reunion was accepted for exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's show, "American Painting, 1950"—a major honor for a young artist. Milking Time of 1947 dates to this feverish post-war period of Medearis' production. Despite the bare trees and limited palette, the painting possesses a sense of hopefulness: birds are gathering, things are stirring, clouds are passing out of the picture. It's a scene in which things a