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2024, “In This Place: American Dreams”
Based on an inscription on the back of the painting, this watercolor depicts a scene in the “Spaghetti District,” a neighborhood in the French Quarter of New Orleans where Sicilian businesses produced dry pasta. When Kansas artist Fern Cooper created this picture of overflowing abundance in 1942, the U.S. economy was just getting back on its feet after the devastation of the Great Depression. It signals hope that the promise of America as a land of plenty would bear out.Label
2024 post:
Throughout 2024, we're looking back at the 100 year history of art at the Mulvane. This 1942 watercolor is by Fern Cooper, an artist and instructor at Washburn University in the 1930s. Based on an inscription on the back of the painting, it may depict a scene in the "Spaghetti District," a neighborhood in the French Quarter of New Orleans where Sicilian businesses produced dry pasta.