"Peter!" I cried again, trying not to choke up with the sudden sense of deprivation battering my heart to pieces.
Date1920
Artist
Arthur E. Becher
(American artist and illustrator, 1877–1960)
Illustration Citation"Prairie Mother," by Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer, in Pictorial Review, April 1920
MediumCrayon, graphite, and gouache on illustration board
Dimensionscomposition: 18 1/8 × 19 3/8 in. (46 × 49.2 cm)
sheet: 19 7/8 × 24 3/8 in. (50.5 × 61.9 cm)
sheet: 19 7/8 × 24 3/8 in. (50.5 × 61.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of the estate of Frieda Becher, 1971
Object number1971-25
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextStringer's fiction often explored the tensions experienced by a person of refined Eastern sensibility who is exposed to harsh Western prairie life. In Prairie Mother, a New England socialite married to a Scots-Canadian wheat farmer arrives on the Alberta plains with hope for a happy family life. Instead, she endures financial losses and personal trials that eventually end her marriage and force her into independence. In this scene, a man to whom she has grown close has announced that he is leaving her household.
