Today's post again has potential to raise the objection that it's not Halloween related. And I acknowledge there's nothing directly Halloween-y here, but there are some nice Autumnal scenes and a couple of those feature pumpkins, so there's that. I do expect, however, that some readers will have flashbacks to their own childhood home walls when they see this. It seems to be a trigger object for many, including myself.
I remember this painting showing up on our kitchen wall around 1976. I had no idea where it came from, but the Fall scenes fascinated me, particularly the pumpkins which I couldn't look at without thinking of Halloween. The scenes also reminded me of our family farm in southern Missouri and the signature on each mini-masterpiece of "B. Mitchell" made me imagine they were painted by a local resident we knew that lived near there named Bill Mitchell. Of course, that wasn't true. More on that in a bit.
The other odd thing was that all but seemingly the last picture of the wagon by the pond was signed. My sister and I thought this was the artist's challenge and would search endlesslessly believing the signature was hidden somewhere among the grass, like some kind of Al Hirschfeld "Nina" stunt. My sister claimed to have found it once, but wouldn't share the location. But, both that and that that particular painting was painted by "B. Mitchell" turned out to likely not be true.
Googling the story behind this painting led me to a previous blogger's post on it in which the artist's son identified him as Bruce Kirk Mitchell:
My name is Bruce Mitchell the artist you are talking about is my father Bruce Kirk Mitchell. I believe the painting in the bottom right was not painted by my father. It is a little off from his painting style. I’m not sure why the printing company swap another artist work into the 12 set as my father did paint a painting for each pain [sic].
I also learned that this painting was likely bought at a Homco party, a sales model similar to Tupperware parties. I don't recall my mother attending one of these, but she did attend Tupperware parties, so it's very possible. She was working as a volunteer librarian at my elementary school around this time, so it's likely the party was given by one of her co-workers.
Homco was started by Mary C. Crowley in 1957. Mary, born in 1915, was sent to be raised by her grandparents on a Missouri farm when her mother passed when Mary was 18 months old (I wonder if that influenced the choice of that particular painting to be sold). Divorcing at the height of the depression, she attended night school and eventually got a job in sales with Stanley Home Products. She started Homco at the age of 42 as a family business, running it with her daughter and son. She passed away in 1986 having elevated the business to $400 million in sales. Homco was sold in 1994 for $1 Billion.
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