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Pickett’s Charge
FES Title: Progressive Farmer – Raleigh, NC. Cover drawing – Pickett’s Charge
Alternate Titles: Pickett’s Charge
[1977]
Date: 03/25/1938
Size: 49″ x 36″
Medium: oil-on-Best
Type: subject painting
Published: Progressive Farmer and Southern Ruralist, July 1938: cover.[no caption]

“Sketch Book…featuring the work of outstanding Delaware artists.” Dateline Delaware, September-October, 1960: 27.
caption: “Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, from Cemetery Hill to Cemetery Ridge”. The 11th New Jersey Volunteers, led by the artist’s father, held the brunt of the attack.

Schoonover, Cortlandt. Frank Schoonover, Illustrator of the North American Frontier. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976: 168.
caption: Pickett’s Charge
Inscription: lr: Frank E. Schoonover / ’38
Annotations:
Exhibitions: 1977 FES
Comments: NT 4×5 [3]; form 4-07; index;
Note: The 11th New Jersey Volunteers, led by the artist’s father, Col. John Schoonover, ‘held the brunt of the attack’. [check info]
Commentary: Schoonover authenticated his work with research: “March 7 – A telephone call from Raleigh. Dr. Clarence Pae talking about cover drawing – Pickett’s Charge…March 20 -To Washington – Smithsonian for information.” (day books). In a letter to Evelyn H. Smith, dated March 17, 1938, the artist explains “The glory of the advance is epitomized in the dramatic sky. The golden light of the mid-afternoon sun breaks through the clouds and shines with bathing glory upon the flag – the color bearer and the officer. This is the genesis of the idea: that which moves, in swinging across from that point the fore-ground, is but the human foil to that glorious effort of the South. As to the terrain. Far to the right is Seminary Ridge – to the far left Cemetery Hill. And to the left also – in small detail is the Union battery and the Union flags. / Pickett’s men are advancing from West to East.”
Provenance: Sold by artist to Philip D. Laird, Wilmington, Delaware (April 5, 1940); descended in the family to Lydia Chichester Laird, New Castle, Delaware; Delaware Historical Society of Delaware, Wilmington, Delaware [1976]; David Silliman, Charleston, South Carolina; private collection (2009)