Mending Nets
Artist
Claude Flynn Howell
American, 1915–1997
Date1947
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions30 x 42 in. (76.2 x 106.7 cm)
Frame: 31 3/4 x 43 3/4 in. (80.6 x 111.1 cm)
Frame: 31 3/4 x 43 3/4 in. (80.6 x 111.1 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LinePurchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest)
Object numberG.47.1.1
On View
On viewBy the 1940s, Howell was deeply engaged with the artistic debates of his time. He studied American regional painters who turned to scenes of rural life, as well as artists experimenting with modernist approaches influenced by European art, especially cubism. His synthesis of regional subjects and modernism is vividly apparent in Mending Nets, where flat areas of color and defined shapes compose his subjects. To ensure his portrayals of coastal life were accurate, Howell even learned to construct fishing nets, as seen here.
[Jared Ledesma, Curator of 20th-Century and Contemporary Art, 2025]ProvenanceProbably created Wilmington, NC, 1947; collection of the artist; sold to NCMA, 1947.
Published ReferencesNorth Carolina Artists' Eleventh Annual Exhibition (brochure) (Raleigh: North Carolina State Arts Society, 1947), no. 24.
Acquisitions from North Carolina Annuals, 1946-1966 (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1967), cat. no. 21, illus. (b-w).
Claude Howell: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1975), cat. no 39, illus. (b-w).
"Outgoing Loans to Temporary Exhibitions," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 13, no. 3 (1976), listed 59.
Jonathan Stuhlman and Martha R. Severens, ed., Southern/Modern: Rediscovering Southern Art from the First Half of the Twentieth Century (exhibition catalogue) (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023), 70, fig. 57 (illus. color).Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, State Art Gallery, State Library Building, "North Carolina Artists' Eleventh Annual Exhibition," December 4, 1947-January 4, 1948, no. 24.
Bellhaven, NC, Library, March, 1958.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Acquisitions from N.C. Annuals," 1967, cat. no. 21, illus.
Raleigh,NC, Meredith College, "Claude Howell," September 22-October 22, 1972.
Wilmington, NC, St. John's Gallery, "Claude Howell Retrospective: 1939-1973," October 1973.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Claude Howell: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings," January 19-February 16, 1975; Winston-Salem, NC, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, March 7-March 28, 1975; Charlotte, NC, Mint Museum of Art, April 6-May 4, 1975, cat. no. 11, illus. (b-w).
Wilmington, NC, St. John's Museum of Art, "Claude Howell: Carolina Interpreter," March 17-June 4, 1995.
Athens, GA, Georgia Museum of Art, "Southern/Modern," June 17–December 10, 2023; Nashville, TN, Frist Art Museum, January 25–April 21, 2024; Memphis, TN, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, July 14–September 29, 2024; Charlotte, NC, The Mint Museum, October 26, 2024–February 2, 2025.
Raleigh, NC. North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection Reimagined," November 7, 2025-present. Object Rights Statement
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