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Blue Sail Fleet Returns
after 1949
Earl Cunningham
Born: Edgecomb, Maine 1893
Died: St. Augustine, Florida 1977
oil on fiberboard
16 1/2 x 36 1/4 in. (41.8 x 92.1 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Mennello
1988.64
Smithsonian American Art Museum
3rd Floor, Luce Foundation Center
Earl Cunningham painted more than four hundred images of the sea, based on his memories of voyages up and down the East Coast. Blue Sail Fleet Returns does not show an actual location, but rather a combination of real and imaginary elements. He created a fantasy world with purple water, orange trees, and birds as large as a house, and may have included himself as one of the tiny fishermen on the pier. The sea represented freedom to Cunningham, and one of his dreams was to own a houseboat so he could live permanently on the water ("Earl Cunningham's American Eden," Gary Schwan, The Palm Beach Post, 1994, Chuck and Jan Rosenak research material, 1990-1999, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution).
For more information about this work visit the Luce Foundation Center.
Keywords
Animal - bird
Architecture - boat - sailing ship
Waterscape - harbor
Waterscape - time - sunset
painting
folk art
paint - oil
fiberboard
About Earl Cunningham
Born: Edgecomb, Maine 1893 Died: St. Augustine, Florida 1977
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