‘The Raven’ takes flight from Uniontown to join Heinz exhibit
PITTSBURGH – Douglas McCombs stood admiring “The Raven,’ a whimsical-looking carved bird sitting in a glass case at the Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. The carved bird had traveled from Uniontown to be part of the Strip District museum’s new show on folk art.
“He has such character – the way he’s sitting there,’ McCombs, assistant curator for the history center, said of the sculpture that is based on the famous Edgar Allen Poe poem. “He’s a great piece.’
“The Raven’ is on loan from the Uniontown Art Club, which usually presents it to the public in the Pennsylvania Room of the Uniontown Public Library. The art club houses its artworks throughout the library for the public to enjoy.
But “The Raven,’ believed to be carved by 19th century artist David Gilmore Blythe, is receiving a larger audience in its place among a show featuring local western Pennsylvania folk art at the history center.
The western Pennsylvania exhibit is a companion show to a traveling Smithsonian exhibit featuring artists from around the country that the history center is presenting through Jan. 30. The national show is called “Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.’ The western Pennsylvania show, for which McCombs is curator, also houses several pieces of Greensboro stoneware acquired from private collections. The stoneware includes a 10-gallon jar made in 1852, a pitcher made in 1888 and two sculptures, an 1880 piggybank and an 1889 spaniel.
Only the artist for the spaniel is known, identified as F.L. Cleavenger of Greensboro, among the Greensboro pieces.
McCombs discovered the Greensboro stoneware through private collections. He learned about “The Raven” through a catalog for a Smithsonian show on David Gilmore Blythe from 1980.
“I thought this would be a great piece,’ he said. “It’s an abstract form – obviously it’s a raven, but it’s not a true-to-life form.’
McCombs discovered “The Raven” was owned by the Uniontown Art Club and made arrangements to include it in this folk art show.
Sylvia Vignali, president of the Uniontown Art Club, said, “It was really exciting that an international museum like the Heinz knew about us. It’s a feather in our cap.’
It’s also a treat for district residents to see these local pieces given attention at a show that celebrates some of the best folk art in the area. The local pieces date back to 1799 and include sculptures, paintings, stoneware, quilts, carvings on a long rifle, furniture, glassware, documents, samplers, dolls and replicas of gravestones.
The most famous artist in the western Pennsylvania collection is John Kane, whose “Bloomfield Bridge’ and “Scene From the Scottish Highlands’ are shown.
“Kane, who was born in Scotland and immigrated to Pittsburgh when he was 19, worked as a laborer and painted in his spare time,” according to a press release from the history center. “In 1927, he submitted ‘Scene From the Scottish Highlands’ to the jury for the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.
He was accepted and became famous almost overnight, invited by museums nationwide to show his work. Some of his paintings are now held by the Philips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.’
In Fayette County, David Gilmore Blythe is among the most famous local artists. In fact, local historian Walter J. “Buzz’ Storey called him “one of America’s foremost genre artists of the 19th century’ in his book “Stories of Uniontown and Fayette County.’
Storey explained that “Blythe, a native of East Liverpool, Ohio, started as a woodcarver and cabinet maker, served in the U.S. Navy as a carpenter and came to Uniontown as an itinerant portrait painter. He quickly won several commissions and also became known as a talented poet, writing verses – both sentimental and satiric – that appeared in local newspapers.
“He sculpted the (heroic-sized wooden) LaFayette statute (for the Fayette County Courthouse) in 1847, and tried to get a similar job for the statue of Nathaniel Greene atop the Greene County courthouse, but couldn’t come to an agreement on price.
“Blythe’s bachelor days ended when he fell in love with the beautiful Julia Keffer. She was a Catholic at a time when members of that religion were far from numerous in this area; traveling priests said Mass in various homes. David and Julia were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh.
“In less than a year, Julia died of consumption (tuberculosis) or typhoid fever – accounts differ. Blythe was devastated by her death, inconsolable for the rest of his life.
More than half of his 70 poems that survive talk about his courtship and marriage. Blythe became difficult to deal with, and let his personal appearance deteriorate.’
Storey reported that Blythe produced several portraits and small wooden sculptures in Uniontown and in 1951-52 took on the massive task of painting in a downtown building “A Great Moving Panorama of the Allegheny Mountains,’ a series of historic and picturesque scenes from Albemarle County, Va., to Ligonier Valley, Pa. The panorama was taken from town to town on tour but proved a commercial failure and was later used as theatrical scenery.
Blythe, Storey said, moved to Pittsburgh where he continued painting, including scenes of the Civil War, sometimes traveling with the Union Army. He died in 1865 at the age of 50.