John Rogers Cox (American, 1915-1990) Gray and Gold, 1942

Oil on canvas Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1943.60 The Cleveland Museum of Art, Location: Gallery 239

The power of this composition derives largely from the simple and realistic depiction of a bountiful American harvest, set below an ominous sky with rising storm clouds, perhaps as a metaphor for world events.

The sharp, exacting details and transparent glazes were created by mixing oil paint with varnish and turpentine, a technique popular with American Scene painters of the 1930s and 1940s.

Shortly after completing the painting, Cox commented: I didn't think of it all at once, but set about arranging the composition and size of the canvas so that I could get more wheat in it than anything else....The entire painting was done from imagination and was painted between Labor Day, 1942, and the last day before the deadline shipping date to the Artists for Victory exhibition. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1942-43, where the canvas received a medal).