Label
(from 2014.Old Walks and New)
John Gorbutt, American (Kansas), 1904-1984
Road Across the Prairie, 1979, oil on canvas
Road Across the Prairie presents an idealized view of the Kansas landscape. Clouds break in a dark sky casting a golden glow on a path that winds across the prairie and into the Flint Hills. In the 1930s, Gorbutt’s work was associated with that of such Regionalists as Joe Jones and Thomas Hart Benton. After creating non-objective art in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, Gorbutt returned to the realism of this youth. The undulating rhythms of the path and hills in this work recall the style of Benton and Birger Sandzén.