Workers of the Soil

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Artist John Edward Costigan (American, 1888–1972)

Title Workers of the Soil

Date 1932, published 1947

Medium Etching on paper

Dimensions Image: 8 3/16 × 12 13/16 in. (20.8 × 32.5 cm)
Sheet: 11 15/16 × 15 7/8 in. (30.3 × 40.3 cm)

Credit Line Gift of Joan W. & Walter E. Wolf, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University

Accession Number 2017.44

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About this Work

While John Edward Costigan's scenes of rural American farmsteads (based on his home in upstate New York) are often linked with the Regionalists and were sometimes reprinted by the Associated American Artists--a publisher promoting that movement--his choice of intaglio technique and darker aesthetic recalls the nineteenth-century Etching Revival and Barbizon School. Despite its apparent realism, his image of workers in a field seems archetypal. The nuclear family suggests the Holy Family's Rest on the Flight into Egypt as rays of light from the sky penetrate the gloom.

Provenance
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Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

Publisher Associated American Artists

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"Workers of the Soil | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=2017.44