Artwork Title: Godly Susan

Godly Susan, 1941

Roger Medearis

"I was 21 and my life was just beginning. She was 81---her life would soon be ending. That year, America entered [World War II] and nothing would ever be the same again!" The artist, quoted in American Art Museum curatorial file. Roger Medearis completed this painting of his grandmother Susan Carns Medearis at the end of a three years' study with Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. Medearis used the sunporch of his father's church as a makeshift studio to create detailed sketches of his grandmother, who had suffered a stroke several years earlier. His grandmother holds a lemon, whose sour taste she enjoyed, in her strong, still-vibrant left hand, contrasting the paralyzed right side of her body. This portrait memorialized his beloved family matriarch. The title reflects Susan's role as the daughter and granddaughter of Baptist ministers and the mother of three more. Born in the early days of the Civil War,... [https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/godly-susan-33322]
27 x 23 in
Uploaded on Aug 12, 2016 by tom tom

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