Midwestern Illionis Lands

In 1986, Keith Crown provided the Phillips Collection with what he described as an “artist family tree,” replete with artists who influenced his practice. At its trunk were John Marin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and most prominently, Paul Cezanne. Cezanne’s influence can be found in Crown’s frequent depictions of landscapes that mimic the flattened pictorial surfaces of the French artist, as well as his energetic brushstrokes.

When describing the genesis of Midwestern Illinois Land, Crown wrote: “In 1971 while in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois for a year, I did three watercolors of the same subject in three days…. The subject was a soybean field that has been harvested, leaving stubble piercing a silvery cigar-ash colored soil. On the stark horizon was a grain elevator resembling a very early space-age rocket and pad. (It was, by the way, very cold, so that the first two watercolors show definite signs of having frozen in process).”[1]

Keith Crown studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before joining the US Army. After graduating, he became a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Crown retired in 1983 to the Midwest and spent most of his summers in Talpa, New Mexico. Both landscapes deeply influenced his practice and serve as the setting for many of his watercolors.

Text by Camille Brown as part of the Seeing U.S. Research Project