Still Life with Brook Trout

Inscriptions

Signed, lower left: Wesley Webber. N.Y.

Label

Fish tumble from an overturned basket in this fishing still life. All sorts of objects—a fishing net, pole, hat, pipe, and fuzzy lures carefully tucked away in a booklet—reflect the artist’s enjoyment of a pastime, as well as the necessity of procuring food. Discarded matches inform the viewer that the fisherman, whose attributes are seen but he himself is absent, spent several hours smoking while filling this basket with a fresh catch.

The artist, Wesley Webber, likely fished in Long Island Sound, the endpoint of the nearby Connecticut River that divides Hanover, New Hampshire, from Norwich, Vermont. During this period, industrial waste from mills constructed along this river polluted Long Island Sound, leaving us to wonder about the health of those who consumed these fish.

From the 2023 exhibition Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Francine A'Ness, Summer 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Art History 40.01, American Art and Identity, Mary Coffey, Fall 2023

Creative Writing 10.02, Writing and Reading Fiction, Katherine Crouch, Fall 2023

Geography 11.01, Qualitative Methods, Emma Colven, Fall 2023

Geography 2.01, Introduction to Human Geography, Coleen Fox, Fall 2023

Geography 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Fall 2023

English 30.01, African and African American Studies 34.01, Early Black American LIterature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024

Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Writing 5.07, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Exhibition History

Gifts of the Class of 1937, Beaumont Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 10-November 11, 1973.

Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-June 16, 2024.

Provenance

Muriel B. and David Morrogh Camerer; given to present collection, 1968.

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Subjects