Image: Gifford Beal, The Fish Bucket (1924).

Generally we find pieces of art to post for this series by poking around the internet looking for something related to food. This picture came from the more traditional serendipitous path of wandering through a museum, in this case the Phillips Collection. You go to see young Picasso, and you end up taking away the thoughts of a lesser-known New York artist of the same era.

Gifford Beal was born and died in New York City, (1879 – 1956), but much of his art is focused on Rockport, Massachusetts and those that make their living there. The Philllips’ site describes the painting:

“In The Fish Bucket, Beal painted a man emptying his catch for the day onto the dock. Though Beal has portrayed a man hard at work, there is a lightness to the painting; Beal tended to paint pleasant images, finding ways to celebrate his subject. Beal successfully does this in The Fish Bucket with his bright palette. He captures warm sunlight, which fills with sky with bright blue light that dances off the sea; the fisherman’s body is framed in golden light. Beal’s soft, feathery brushwork furthers the sweet pleasantness of the painting, giving the sense of a gentle breeze sweeping through the air.”

Beal had another tie to the Phillips. His niece, Marjorie Acker, married Duncan Phillips.

###

We post on art on Saturdays, but the rest of the time we are doing a dining guide for Washington, D.C. So if you are around the city or thinking of coming to our fair capital, be sure to check out the rest of the site. We have 300+ recommended restaurants in the guide, that you can sort by cuisine, neighborhood, and current operating status (dine-in and/or take-out, etc.) in either LIST or MAP format.  Though operating status is changing day-to-day, so be sure to double-check.

To ensure you don’t miss out on our postings about either art or food, then please give us a follow.  We are on FB, Insta, and Twitter.  Click on the icons at the top or bottom of this page to stay up to date.