The Source

Provenance

The Artist
Macbeth Gallery
Collection of Judge Alexander Simpson, Pennsylvania, 1926, acquired from above
Private Collection, c. 1930s
Private Collection, New Hampshire, by descent
Vose Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts, 2018-2019
Private Collection and Trust, New Hampshire, 2019-2024
Private Collection
Sale, Freeman’s, Chicago, Illinois, December 7, 2025, lot 50

Exhibited

National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 99th Annual Exhibition, March 22 –April 20, 1924, no. 264.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 121st Annual Exhibition, January 31– March 21, 1926, no. 64, illustrated.

Kende Galleries at Gimbel Brothers, New York, New York, May 6 –May 10, 1947, no. 82.

Literature

Peter H. Falk, Andrea Ansell Bien, and National Academy of Design (U.S.: 1828–1997), The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design, 1901–1950: Incorporating the Annual Exhibitions, 1901–1950 and the Winter Exhibitions, 1906–1932 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1990), 118-119.

Peter H. Falk and Anna Wells, The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1914–1968 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989).

Macbeth Gallery records, 1947–1948, 1838–1968, bulk 1892–1953, “Carlson, John F., 1926,” Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Kende Galleries at Gimbel Brothers, French and English Furniture, 1947, 20, no 82.

Related Works

Brooding Silence, oil on canvas mounted on fiberglass, 37 1⁄8 x 52 inches, signed lower left: John F. Carlson; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

Winter Willows, c.1937, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches, signed lower right: John F. Carlson; Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah

Note

Shown at the Pennsylvania Academy’s 121st Annual Exhibition in 1926, The Source sold during the show, as revealed in the artist’s correspondence with Robert McIntyre, owner of the MacBeth Gallery, which long represented Carlson. The artist described it as “one of my very best. (Hell’s fire an artist seldom knows when he has hit it),” and later expressed delight at the sale, exclaiming, “Hooray! … ‘things is looking up,’” clearly relieved and pleased to have the income at that point in his career.[1]

John Fabian Carlson immigrated to the United States with his family in 1886 and studied art in Buffalo before earning scholarships to the Art Students League in New York and the Woodstock Art Colony. Renowned for his atmospheric landscapes that captured the shifting moods of light, weather, and season, he became director of the Art Students League’s Landscape Summer School in Woodstock in 1911 and later founded the John F. Carlson School of Landscape Painting. A founding member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Academy of Design, Carlson exhibited widely, earned numerous awards, and his work is held in major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

[1] Macbeth Gallery records, 1947–1948, 1838–1968, bulk 1892–1953, “Carlson, John F., 1926,” Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.