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A second watercolor of the dairy is the same size and is also signed and dated 1922. Presumably they were painted as a pair.
Since Graham knew Katharine Smith Reynolds Johnston, Charles and Mary Babcock, and Richard J. (Dick) Reynolds, Jr., it is probable that the pair of watercolors was a personal gift to a member of the Reynolds family. However, there is no documentation to indicate to whom or when they were gifted. The Museum’s first hospitality director, E. Carter, believed Graham gave them to Katharine. Charles Frost, who lived with the artist, said that she gave them to Dick Reynolds, a close friend of her son John who was Dick’s best man when he married his first wife, Elizabeth “Blitz” McCaw Dillard in 1933.
In the early 1960s, Charles H. Babcock (1899–1967) gave the house and its contents, presumably including this watercolor, to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection—Reynolda House, Inc.—on December 18, 1964, with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965. The painting was reproduced on the cover of Barbara Mayer’s book, Reynolda: The Creation of an American Country House and Its Survival into the Present, published in Winston-Salem by John F. Blair in 1997.
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]
Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Exhibition History
DepartmentHistoric House
South Façade of Reynolda House
Artist
Margaret Nowell Graham
(1868 - 1942)
Date1922
Mediumwatercolor on paper
DimensionsFrame: 15 3/16 × 17 7/8 in. (38.6 × 45.4 cm)
Image (visible): 8 1/2 × 11 1/4 in. (21.6 × 28.6 cm)
SignedMargaret Nowell Graham.
Credit LineReynolda Estate
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1966.2.100
DescriptionSouth Façade of Reynolda House shows the house five years after its completion and provides an important visual record for the bungalow designed by architect Charles Barton Keen for Katharine Smith Reynolds. The watercolor is lightly sketched in pencil but built up with washes of light color. The flowering azalea bush, red geraniums in the window boxes of the southwest bedroom sleeping porch, and the screening of the sun porch suggest this is late spring at Reynolda. Although a partial view of the south façade, the details are consistent with photography taken around this time. A 1918 black-and-white photograph shows the awnings over the second floor windows tied up; in the watercolor, the white and green striped awnings are extended complementing the color of the Ludowici-Celadon roof tiles. The point of view suggests that a hedge edges the sun porch, when in fact the hedge actually was a border for the circular drive that led to the porte-cochère entrance that is just out of view to the right.A second watercolor of the dairy is the same size and is also signed and dated 1922. Presumably they were painted as a pair.
Since Graham knew Katharine Smith Reynolds Johnston, Charles and Mary Babcock, and Richard J. (Dick) Reynolds, Jr., it is probable that the pair of watercolors was a personal gift to a member of the Reynolds family. However, there is no documentation to indicate to whom or when they were gifted. The Museum’s first hospitality director, E. Carter, believed Graham gave them to Katharine. Charles Frost, who lived with the artist, said that she gave them to Dick Reynolds, a close friend of her son John who was Dick’s best man when he married his first wife, Elizabeth “Blitz” McCaw Dillard in 1933.
In the early 1960s, Charles H. Babcock (1899–1967) gave the house and its contents, presumably including this watercolor, to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection—Reynolda House, Inc.—on December 18, 1964, with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965. The painting was reproduced on the cover of Barbara Mayer’s book, Reynolda: The Creation of an American Country House and Its Survival into the Present, published in Winston-Salem by John F. Blair in 1997.
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]
Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Exhibition History
Status
Not on view