Walter Elmer Schofield, Cottage in Cornwall

Schofield’s was no modernist. Although he absorbed the lessons of composition, formal invention, and free brushwork of modern art, he rejected the hard edges of 1920s Art Deco and the disjointed expressionism of Cubism. Instead, he favored of subjects that embrace the unchanging beauty of times that he believed were simpler and less fraught. Schofield’s many paintings of thatched or stone cottages and pre-modern fishing harbors are expressions of nostalgia. Here, the bright white stucco surfaces of an elegant seaside cottage in Cornwall absorb the light of crisp sunshine beneath an impressively expansive sky. We can sense the seaside breeze and enjoy the abundant flowers of an English country garden. We might ask: who wouldn’t want to live in this world that Schofield conjures?