Spring 1934

Philip Evergood created this painting, called "Spring," with oil on canvas, and the marks are so gestural and free, you can really see the process of artmaking right there on the surface. I see this scene, with figures huddled together, and then the industrial background looming behind them, like different kinds of time bumping up against each other. There's something very physical about the way Evergood applied the paint, especially in the figures. The colors are mixed right there on the canvas. Look at the way the yellow jacket pops, the colors muddied and raw, a yellow yell you could say. The buildings in the background are more linear, a contrast to the figures in the front, which are all curves. Evergood plays with that tension, and in the same way that Marsden Hartley painted a very masculine, muscular, almost hyper-real version of Americana, I think Evergood is offering us a softer, more human take. There is a kind of conversation taking place here, across time.