Hanging Clothes

Artist John Koch (American, 1909-1978)

Date1950

DimensionsH: 36 in. (91.5 cm); W: 29 15/16 in. (76 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1952.97

Not on View

Label TextJohn Koch is best known for urban interior scenes, but here outdoors and indoors are connected through a broad open doorway. According to the artist’s wife, Dora Koch, this canvas shows the artist painting in his garage at Setauket, Long Island, where he lived from 1941. Dora posed for the seated figure reading the newspaper, and probably also for the woman hanging clothes. During the last 30 years of his life, Koch often painted the theme of the artist at work. Blank and nearly blank rectangles abound: compare the dappled surface of the angled canvas at which Koch stands to the clean sheets draped over the clothes line, and even to the newspaper Dora reads along the righthand edge of this painting, or to the shiny metal shovel hovering above her head.Published ReferencesArt Digest, vol. 24, Sept. 1950, p. 17, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 71, pl. 248. Weber, Bruce, All-American XXI: Time Will Tell, New York, Little Bear Press, 2020, repr. (col.).

Exhibition HistoryManchester, Clearwater Museum, 21st August Annual of Southern Vermont Artists, 1950.

New York, National Academy of Design, 1951, no. 81.

Toledo Museum of Art, 39th Annual, 1952, no. 41.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 147th Annual Exhibition, 1952, no. 74.

Fort Wayne (IN) Art Museum, American Landscape, 1960.

Milwaukee Art Center, The Inner Circle, 1966, no. 53, repr.

Akron Art Institute, Celebrate Ohio, 1971.

New York Cultural Center, John Koch, 1973, no. 6, repr.

Hamilton (NY), Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Models and Moments, Paintings and Drawings by John Koch, 1977, no. 1, repr.

Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1977.

Allentown Art Museum, The Artist's Studio, 1840-1983, 1983, no. 38, repr.

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, A Century of Caring: One Hundred Years of American Realism, 1986, pp. 49, 57, repr. p. 34.

Columbus (OH) Museum of Art; Tokyo, The Isetan Museum; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, et. al, A Nation's Legacy: 150 Years of American Art from Ohio Collections, 1992, no. 79, p. 182, repr. p. 114 (col.)