Here’s a collection of people picking fruit. Most of the people picking fruit are women, a metaphorically gendered activity (if not an actual one?) Images of women picking fruit appeals to our fantasies of abundance and self-sufficiency. Many of these works are brightly coloured and cosy.
But then you get the odd inversion…
Man in apple tree is in danger of falling out, Michiel Mosijn, after Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, 1640 – 16551914 Drawing of an Orchard, Paul Nash, UK The pile of apples from “Old Mother Frost” or “Frau Holle”, collected by the Grimm Brothers. ‘The Lemon Gatherers’ (1910) Robert KitsonPietro Isnardi Olive Oil 1910s, Liguria, Italy‘Blackberries.’ (1922) Harold Harvey‘The Bean Harvest.’ Harry Becker, painted in The Netherlands around 1900Emile Bernard Apple Pickers in Pont-Aven, 1888Frederick Morgan – An Apple GatheringAnne AndersonCarl Olof Larsson apple pickingAn advertising card, French, late nineteenth or early twentieth centuryWoman’s World Magazine cover art October 1917Woman’s World Magazine October 1916 cover artNelly Erichsen, (English painter of Danish heritage, 1862-1918)Myles Birket Foster – Apple Harvest William Stephen Coleman – Picking Apples 1880 Imitation of the painting above, illustrator unknown Edward John Poynter (English, 1836-1919) The Golden Age 1875Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (French painter 1841-1895) ‘Cueillette d’orange’Cover art for October 1927 GOOD HOUSEKEEPING Magazine b Jessie Willcox Smith – a young girl picking grapes and putting them into a basket.Salvatore Postiglione, Italian painter (1861-1906) CherryCover art for Farmer’s Wife Magazine 1938. Is she picking grapes or trying on lipstick?Apples (1912) [Cornwall] by Harold C. Harvey (English, 1874-1941)Edmund Blair Leighton – SeptemberHartley’s marmalade – showcard design by Freda Beard for W P Hartley & Co. Ltd., c1925Arkady SherThe COUNTRY GENTLEMAN Magazine cover art for MAY 19 1923, girl picking cherriesLeopold the filth, Woman With Basket (1864-1940) Stříbro, República ChecaGyo Fujikawa, 1976Arthur Melville’s The Cabbage Garden 1878Flora Macdonald Reid Scottish painter (1860-1938) The Potato PickersFlora Macdonald Reid Scottish painter (1860-1938) Field WorkersNorman Mills Price (1877 – 1951) Frederick Walker (British, 1840 – 1875) Spring,1864Harold Harvey (British,1874-1941) Summer 1917A transitional figure between the Impressionists and the Fauves, Henri LebasqueMade from Stock Photography and Deep Dream Generator
Header illustration: Cover of January 1938 The American Home Magazine – Vegetable Basket
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
![Apples (1912) [Cornwall] by Harold C. Harvey (English, 1874-1941)](https://www.slaphappylarry.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Apples-1912-Cornwall-by-Harold-C.-Harvey-English-1874-1941.jpg)
