Carl Flick Sold at Auction Prices

Carl Flick (1904 - 1976) "Back Yard"

Carl Flick (1904 - 1976) "Back Yard". Signed and dated (1935) lower right. Titled verso. Oil on Board. In response to a letter asking for advice on painting, in 1929, Grant Wood traveled to the Amana religious Colony near Cedar Rapids, Iowa to meet the author of the letter, a struggling young artist named Carl Flick. An account of this meeting was chronicled in a period Cedar Rapids Gazette news article in which was written, "A few months ago, Mr. Wood received a letter from Carl Flick of West Amana. He wished for information concerning proper brushes for painting foregrounds in landscapes. The well-known Iowa artist went down to answer the query personally. There he found, with no art training, no experience that had taken him beyond the peaceful valley where seven old fashion villages sleep, a colonist painting atrocious poster scenes with brushes dipped in genius. Grant pushed aside the vivid copies of gaudy sunsets and Venetian moonlights to show the young man the wealth of painting material that lay around him. ? the corner of the mill, his own backyard, the quaint blue doorways, the picturesque stone homes, and the millrace fringed with pickerel week and willows." The advice Wood gave to Carl Flick to paint what is in your midst was to become one of the rallying cries of regionalism and was of course the lesson Wood himself had learned after so many trips to Europe in his own search of art. In a letter written to an admirer in 1932, Flick wrote of his work, ?It was then he (Wood) opened my eyes to the beauties of my surroundings and showed me how to sketch. Through Mr. Wood?s influence, I learned to see objects around me in a different light.? Sight Size: 13 x 15 in. Overall Size: 19 x 21 in.

CARL FLICK (American 1904-1976) "Gleaners" oil on board, 42" x 106".