Western & Contemporary Native American Art

Born Everard Jean Hinrichs, it is often said that Eric Sloane created his first name from the middle letters of “America” and the last from the name of his revered teacher, Ashcan master John Sloan. Sloane’s works, whether they are of covered bridges in Connecticut, pueblos in Taos, or landscapes and cloud forms—such as the cloud mural he painted that covers an entire wall at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum—are as American as his name. When he moved to Connecticut in the early 1950’s, he became fascinated with the people who settled in the area during the colonial era and in the early years of the Republic. He studied their tools and building techniques and made their homes, barns, and bridges one of his principal subjects. The barn in Stone Barn in Autumn, reverently fashioned of carefully laid out, patterned stones on a spectrum from white to slate, seems almost ecclesiastical, linking the bounty of the land with the blessings bestowed on those who tend it. The light falling on the barn, the beautiful fence, and the slumbering stone wall—all enfolded in autumnal repoussoir in the grand Hudson River School style—give the work a sense of peace and continuity.

- James D. Balestrieri