Manchester Valley by Joseph Pickett

Joseph Pickett (1848-1918), Manchester Valley, c. 1914-18, oil with sand on canvas, 45 1/2 x 60 5/8" (115.4 x 153.7 cm), Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, 541.1939

Folk artist Joseph Pickett was born in New Hope and lived there all of his life. Early in his career, Pickett worked hard learning skills in boatbuilding and carpentry, along with traveling and working in carnivals and fairs. At around the age of 45, he opened a general store, married, and began to paint. He rendered rural landscapes first using house paints, then with oils, typically using an impasto technique. Pickett would work on his canvases for a long time, sometimes taking a few years to finish his work. His work was unappreciated during his lifetime, but he was later rediscovered by artists including Lloyd Ney and R. Moore Price (the brother of M. Elizabeth Price). These connections led to the acquisition of works by the Whitney Museum of Art, The Newark Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. The few works of his that remain, including Manchester Valley, provide a glimpse into the development of industry that was changing the rural landscape in the early 20th century. 


It is believed that Manchester Valley was the first work to come into the school district’s possession around 1918. After Pickett’s death in 1918, his store along with his paintings were put up for auction. The paintings only brought in a dollar a piece, so his widow bought them and fittingly gifted Manchester Valley to the New Hope School where it hung for 10 to 12 years. It remained in the school until about the late 1920s. The New Hope School is featured in the painting and was used from 1859 to 1938 for grades 1-10. 


It was around the late 1920s Manchester Valley was sold by the school to local gallery owner R. Moore Price in order to raise money to landscape the new high school grounds. The same year the high school opened, in 1931, the painting was featured in the Downtown Gallery in New York City, at which time was purchased by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. It was then later included at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in their exhibition, American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America, 1750-1900, in 1932. Rockefeller later gifted the work to MOMA in 1939.


In oral histories provided by the Solebury Township Historical Society, former students recall this painting hanging in the school. Manchester Valley depicts the same landscape painted by Fern Coppedge in her work Evening Local, New Hope.