The Reunion, Brecksville, Ohio, c. 1927

Description:

Wilcox painted The Reunion from his powerful memory of his family’s 1896 reunion. In his manuscript Out in Brecksville, Wilcox states “our family reunions, now almost forgotten locally, owed much to the closely knit ties that bind clans who seldom leave their native heath. This annual meeting took place in late August or early September, after harvest was over. But even so, it was often remarked that so-and-so could not come, on account of farm work. Even if his family was present, practically every farmer would ‘hitch up’ when the sun was still high in order to get back in time for the milking. First, whoever was that year’s host to entertain the interrelated households built tables and benches under the trees of his dooryard or in some nearby pine grove...I remember how festive the pine grove looked when the ladies began to place the tablecloth and set out the plates, knives, and forks....One likes to remember this bucolic scene under the checkered shade, the white dresses of the younger girls, and the little children running about among their more stolid elders. In the distance loomed the hazy summer hills, and mild breezes awoke the harping sound of the pine trees.”

Exhibited: 1927 May Show (1st Place), Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. Great Lakes Art Exhibition, 1939, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York; Art Gallery of Toronto, Canada; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; Milwaukee Art Institute, Wisconsin.

Catalog #38