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The nature of Edward Hicks's painting - Cover Story

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 1999 by Scott W. Nolley, Carolyn J. Weekley

On his sixty-third birthday, April 4, 1845, Edward Hicks (Pl. I) began writing what he called "a short narrative of my life."(1) Early in this account he outlined the details of his childhood, early training, and work as an ornamental painter as well as his struggles as a minister in the Religious Society of Friends. Much of what we know of his life comes from this source and the extensive research of Alice Ford, Eleanore Price Mather, and Dorothy Canning Miller.(2)

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Hicks was born in 1780, a son of Isaac and Catharine Hicks and a grandson of Gilbert Hicks (1720-1784) of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This branch of the family was Anglican, affluent, and owned considerable property, including slaves. Their standing changed dramatically during the American Revolution. Gilbert Hicks, who served in various official capacities in the colonial government, was accused by local citizens of being a traitor to American interests. In 1776 he fled to New York City and later Nova Scotia, where he lived in exile for the rest of his life. His Bucks County lands were later confiscated and sold, and Isaac and Catharine, who stayed behind, were left in reduced circumstances. In November 1779 Isaac Hicks wrote to a friend:

Monday next the person [who] purchase my father's house (in which I now live) is to move in, when I shall then be reduced to one room until I remove my family elsewhere.(3)

By 1781 the family had split up. Isaac Hicks remained in Bucks County while his wife and probably some of their children, including the six-month-old Edward, were living with relatives in Burlington, New Jersey. On October 19, 1781, Catharine Hicks died, and eventually the children were reunited with their father in Bucks County.

Unfortunately, Isaac Hicks was in no position to keep his children together. Several were boarded out to friends in the Newtown region. Edward's brother, Gilbert, went to live and study with a local doctor. Edward was cared for by a family servant known only as Jane until his father made arrangements to board him with David and Elizabeth Twining on their Bucks County farm (Pls. II, IV). In 1793 Isaac Hicks arranged for the thirteen-year-old Edward to become an apprentice with the coach makers William and Henry Tomlinson in Attleborough (now Langhorne) near Newtown. In his memoir Edward Hicks wrote that his father,

finding himself disappointed in his prospect of making a great man out of a weak little boy, by scholastic learning or education, did the best thing that he could have done, by binding me out an apprentice to an industrious mechanic....He was disappointed in my not taking learning for he intended me for a lawyer, as he had made a doctor of my only brother Gilbert.(4)

Edward Hicks's talent and love for painting were encouraged during the apprenticeship, but he was also taught the other, more labor-intensive, aspects of coach making. His health, marked throughout his life by a persistent cough and occasional high fevers, contributed to his choice of the lighter work of painting. Commenting years later, after he had joined the Society of Friends, Hicks wrote:

My constitutional nature has presented formidable obstacles to the attainment of that truly desirable character, a consistent and exemplary member of the Religious Society of Friends; one which is an excessive fondness for painting, a trade to which I was brought up.(5)

The three elements that contributed to Hicks's paintings were his apprenticeship with the carriage makers, his "excessive fondness for painting," and his life as a Quaker. Research indicates that he relied extensively on print sources for images and occasionally entire compositions, although he often modified his sources and integrated elements into his own designs. A recent examination of the Hicks paintings owned by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg, Virginia, as well as several privately owned works, in conjunction with what is known of his ornamental shopwork provides new insights into the artist's methods.

Hicks did not join Quaker meeting until 1801, after he had completed his apprenticeship. In 1803 he married Sarah Worstall (1781-1855) and in 1811 moved to Newtown. Over the years, and particularly after his marriage, there was a tension between what he was trained to do and what the general codes guiding Quaker aesthetics permitted. For centuries the use and intensity of colors and the degree of decoration were important issues among the Quakers. Neutral tones were usually preferred and excessive ornament was generally avoided. The Quakers did not approve of the pictorial arts, but they did not forbid them.(6) In Edward Hicks's time ornamental painting was considered a suitable trade for Quakers as long as it remained within their conservative guidelines. There were also differing attitudes between wealthy urban Quakers and those with modest incomes who lived in outlying areas. Hicks lived in a rural area among those who usually manifested the most simplicity in their dress and possessions.

The nature of Edward Hicks's painting - Cover Story

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 1999 by Scott W. Nolley, Carolyn J. Weekley

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