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EARLY YEARS
Object Details
Down the Hill, 1934.
Down the Hill, 1934.
Grant Reynard
Etching.
Prints and Photographs Division,
Library of Congress (24)
Digital ID# ppmsca-13432
Willa Cather’s Advice to a Young Artist
Meeting Willa Cather (1873–1947) at The MacDowell Colony in 1926 made a big impression on artist and fellow Nebraskan Grant Reynard (1887–1963). Cather told him how her work took on a new dimension when she was suddenly overcome by a great wave of nostalgia for her early Nebraska days. Their conversation led Reynard to abandon his perceived "fine" subject matter and, like Cather’s writing in My Ántonia, explore his direct, personal experience. This kind of thinking was at the heart of the American Scene movement, which sought to capture everyday American life during the 1920s and 1940s.
