Marie Atkinson Hull (American/Mississippi, 1890-1980) , "Fall Landscape", oil on canvas board

Marie Atkinson Hull (American/Mississippi, 1890-1980) , "Fall Landscape", oil on canvas board, signed lower right, 20 in. x 24 in., framed, overall 27 1/8 in. x 31 in. x 2 1/2 in. Note: “Progress and change are the essence of living – for artist and non-artist. Without it stagnation and deterioration soon become evident. People who expand their knowledge and investigate, remain more youthful, have joyous experiences, and become more mentally alert.” – Marie HullMarie Hull was one of Mississippi’s most beloved and prolific artists. Her career spanned seven decades and resulted in a remarkable body of work which displays her unwavering commitment to growth and experimentation. Hull was born in Summit, Mississippi in 1890 and had her first art lesson in 1910 with Aileen Phillips, who was the only trained art teacher in Jackson at the time. Hull quickly acknowledged her passion and talent for painting and soon enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia for one year, followed by a stint at the Art Students League of New York. Returning to Jackson, she gave art lessons in her home and worked as a commercial artist and illustrator. In 1917, Hull married Emmett Johnston Hull who encouraged her painting, and the couple traveled extensively. Around 1920, Hull’s stylistic personality as an artist began to emerge following extensive studies under some of America’s best artists. The paintings of birds created by Hull during her 1925-1926 stay in St. Petersburg, Florida are among her most vibrant, beautiful and desirable works, often juxtaposing the naturalistic poses of the birds with stylized Art Deco depictions of fruit and flora. In the spring of 1929, Hull commenced an eight-month journey that would be one of the most inspirational and important periods of her career. Massachusetts artist George Elmer Brown, who was living in France at the time, ran a series of travel study programs which provided students, and other established artists such as Hull, the opportunity to visit various countries for artistic study of the landscapes and cultures. Hull's own passion for landscape, as evidenced by her earlier travels throughout the United States, was a perfect fit for the program. During the mid-to-late 1930s, Hull traveled to every exhibition she could afford to attend and completed a series of powerful portraits of Mississippi tenant farmers (sometimes titled Sharecroppers) and Black workers. The sitters were often neighbors from nearby farms, and she was fascinated by the beauty she saw in them. Much as she explored various styles, Hull also tried her hand at many different media and became known for her rich color palette. She often joked that she liked any color, as long as it was pink. As her reputation grew, she was commissioned to paint prominent Mississippi figures, and her paintings became highly sought-after.Beginning around 1940, she began to experiment by including flat, interlocking planes of color to interpret the landscape of Mississippi, inspired by Abstract Expressionism, the contemporary art of the day, and encouraged by her student, Andrew Bucci. By the 1960s, Hull was painting in a fully developed Abstract Expressionist style. Although her paintings often displayed the influence of great artists throughout the decades, Hull was able to maintain her own voice and vision within her work. Very much inspired by her own surroundings, she once stated that her ideas came from: “a street pavement’s cracks, the rhythms and patterns formed by rocks in a gravel walk, the beauty of red Mississippi clay.” Hull left a magnificent artistic and personal legacy in Mississippi and made a lasting mark on American art history. Ref.: "Hull, Marie (1890-1980)." The Johnson Collection. www.thejohnsoncollection.org. Accessed Oct. 11, 2020. Levingston, Bruce. Bright Fields: The Mastery of Marie Hull. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015; Norwood, Malcolm M., Virginia McGehee Elias and William S. Haynie. The Art of Marie Hull. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1975.
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