Editor’s note: Mark Bushnell is a Vermont journalist and historian. He is the author of “Hidden History of Vermont” and “It Happened in Vermont.”
Experts look at the mouth. If it has that certain pout, it might be the work of Sheldon Peck, who was a renowned Vermont folk art portraitist. That would be good news if you owned the painting, and bad news if you wanted to buy it, because it would be quite expensive.
Born in 1797 in Cornwall, Peck was a successful portrait painter during his lifetime, but that success pales next to the acclaim his paintings have enjoyed more recently. Today, an inexpensive, verifiable Peck (not one optimistically attributed to him) might sell at auction in the low five digits, while his most sought-after works, those from late in his career, have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2001, Sotheby’s sold a Peck portrait of a married couple for $830,750, the record price for the artist.
Even though the art world has turned its back on representational painting in favor of abstract art, Peck’s appeal today is perhaps understandable; his paintings have an abstract quality, even though he began painting two centuries ago. Peck’s work typically features “very pronounced planes to the face,” explained Nancy Druckman, former director of American Folk Art for Sotheby’s auction house. “The way the eyes are set is very unusual. The bodies, relative to the size of the head, tend to be smaller. He used a sort of shorthand for the legs and feet.”
All of which adds up to a “very abstract, almost surreal style,” said Druckman. “It is interesting to think how a 19th century client could have responded to something that a 21st century viewer would see as quite stylized.”
Peck’s paintings are not for everyone. Though his quirky style has attracted a devoted following among some serious, and well-heeled, collectors, it leaves others bewildered and creeped out.
Looking at Peck’s paintings, it is hard to imagine finding much in common with the people in them. They seem uptight and seriously unhappy, their faces communicating just how hard life could be then. But those who sat for Peck clearly saw something in his work that appealed to them.
Peck’s distinctive approach to painting has made life easier for art researchers. Like most folk painters, Peck didn’t sign his paintings, but his unique style makes his work attributable. For example, in addition to the dour expressions, Peck developed a style of painting one long brush stroke between two smaller ones. These so-called “rabbit’s foot” or “rabbit track” marks help identify a true Peck.
So far, art historians have identified about 60 works as being painted by Peck. That might sound like a moderate output, but it actually makes him one of the few American folk artists with that many known works.
Knowing who created a painting makes it more significant, because it provides context to the work. Often with folk art, researchers have to be content with merely identifying a painting’s region of origin and roughly the period when it was painted. But with Peck, we get something of the artist’s life story, even if it is only the basic outline.
Sheldon Peck was the son of Eliza Gibbs Peck and Jacob Peck, a Revolutionary War veteran who was one of Cornwall’s first settlers. Jacob Peck was a farmer and blacksmith and might have wanted his son to pursue similar work. But Sheldon was the ninth of 11 Peck children. By the time he arrived, the family probably had no farmland left to divide.
Historians don’t know why Sheldon Peck took up painting or how he learned his trade. Some theorize he may have read an instructional book in the collection of the Cornwall Young Gentlemen’s Society or perhaps watched an itinerant portrait painter work.
Whatever his training, Peck began painting no later than 1820, when he was 23. Several years later, in 1824, Peck married Harriet Corey of Bridport, who was 18. The couple soon relocated to Burlington, where records show that Harriet gave birth to a child, their second, in 1827.
The path of the Pecks’ lives mirrored that of many people in small-town New England during the 19th century. They moved west, probably in search of greater opportunity. First stop was Jordan, New York, a burgeoning community prospering from the commerce brought by the nearby Erie Canal, which had only recently opened. Here, historians suggest, Peck hoped to find a clientele wealthy enough to afford the luxury of commissioning a portrait.
After about eight years, the Pecks moved on to Illinois. Their departure from New York was announced in a rather odd notice in the local newspaper. Paid for by a man named Hezekiah Gunn, the note read: “Be it known to all people, that one Sheldon Peck, and Harriet his wife, not having the fear of God before their eyes, being instigated by the devil, have with malice aforethought most wickedly and maliciously hired, flattered, bribed or persuaded my wife Emeline, to leave me without just cause of provocation. It is supposed that said Peck has carried her to some part of the state of Illinois. This is therefore to forbid all persons harboring or trusting my wife Emeline, for I will pay no debts of her contracting.”
Historians have debated whether the Pecks were Mormons and were taking Emeline into a polygamous marriage. But Emeline Gunn doesn’t appear in Illinois records of the period, and there is no evidence the Pecks were Mormons. Perhaps they were simply helping a woman flee a bad marriage.
Once in Illinois, Peck continued to paint portraits, but he also took work painting ornamental furniture, which historians believe he may have done since his Vermont days.
By the mid-1800s, photography posed a serious threat to portrait painters, who struggled to match its ability to capture exact likenesses cheaply. Peck adapted by painting more complex arrangements of subjects, using brighter colors and adding props to his settings. He also started painting on stretched canvas, which saved him from having to prepare the wooden panels he used for his Vermont and New York portraits. To make his paintings more affordable, he began painting trompe l’oeil frames on them, saving clients the cost of a real frame. It is these later paintings that are most prized by collectors and which fetch the loftiest prices.
To Peck, these prices would no doubt have been astonishing. They might even have elicited from him something that he never allowed his subjects, a smile.
