Rhode Island Landscape

Artist: Frank Herman Alston Jr., American, 1913–1978
Associated: Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Washington, D.C., active 1935–1943
Date: 1939
Material: Watercolor over graphite
depicts: Rhode Island, United States, North and Central America
made in: Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North and Central America
Classification: Drawings & watercolors
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 15 3/4 × 22 11/16 in. (40 × 57.6 cm)
framed: 24 3/4 × 32 × 1 1/4 in. (62.9 × 81.3 × 3.2 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 347:1943

NOTES

Working in an almost monochromatic palette, Frank Herman Alston Jr. balanced the near-symmetry of two trees meeting across a river. The watercolor medium contributes a meandering softness to a landscape that existed for him as a memory. Alston worked for the Federal Art Project in Washington, DC, after a childhood in Rhode Island and education at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Howard University, a historically Black school. In addition to his career as an artist and teacher, Alston went on to become a designer for the Institute of Heraldry in the United States Army.

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