Top Photo: Arthur Walter Stewart, Alabama Landscape, 1940, 33×35.5 inches; AWS-2021.AW.0001
FROM THE DIXIE ART COLONY
Due to our donors’ generosity, we were able to make what is a VERY SIGNIFICANT purchase of this large 1940 oil landscape by Dixie Art Colony artist Arthur Walter Stewart. The painting was acquired directly from Stewart by the grandmother of the person that sold us the painting. Opportunities to make a purchase such as this one do not occur often.
In addition to its large size and condition, part of our excitement about this particular painting is its date, which was one of the years Stewart attended the Dixie art Colony. Although we cannot confirm this scene’s exact location, we have compelling evidence that suggests it is a Central Alabama scene. During colony sessions, the colony artists made regular day trips throughout Elmore, Tallapoosa, Coosa, Autauga, and Chilton Counties to paint the local landscape.
Of the DAC artists, Stewart is considered one of the group’s most accomplished. He was born in 1915 in Marion, Alabama, and attended Marion Military Institute. He began painting at the age of six and held his first one-person exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago at age 23. After graduating from MMI in 1935, Stewart continued his studies at Auburn University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He first attended the Dixie Art Colony in 1936. Upon entering the Army, he served as an artist for the ordnance department during World War II. In 1952, he settled permanently in Birmingham and became internationally known as a portrait painter. His work has hung in Milan’s La Scala opera house, the White House, the Pentagon, and Queen Elizabeth II’s personal collection.
Stewart established his studio at Glocca Morra Farm in Cahaba Heights in the late 1950s and was inducted into the Portrait Painters’ Hall of Fame in 1985. His health began to fail in the 1990s. Stewart passed away in 2001.
For more information on the Dixie Art Colony, visit their website dixieartcolony.com
