Paintings Worth Looking At

There is no shortage of attribution corrections to be made, and interesting portraits to showcase! Here is another assortment of them, all posted first on Facebook and Instagram . While my work on the American Folk Portrait Wiki has precluded the writing of any extensively in-depth articles recently, I hope to keep sharing information whenever I can. - - - William W. Kennedy / Ammi Phillips / Sturtevant Hamblin / Royall Brewster Smith / Erastus Salisbury Field / John Bradley  

This past August, at the 2025 Collectors Fair in Manchester, New Hampshire, I spotted a pair of portraits hanging on the display wall of Saratoga Fine Art. They could be nothing but Kennedys – and brand-new Kennedys, at that. I excitedly informed Walter Bazar, an old friend and who works with his brother Peter at Saratoga Fine Art, about the re-attribution. Within the hour, Walter had changed the label to William W. Kennedy, and a new pair of Prior-Hamblin portraits gained their names. Kennedy’s portraits have a sensibility all their own. His paintings are infused with a high level of technical ability, competently capturing the sitter’s distinctive looks with unique stylization. Like any other artist, he has his quirks – wide-set eyes, broad faces, gently curved hands, firmly outlined features. With practice, it’s possible to spot a Kennedy from a mile away. And, more or less, that’s exactly what happened. Very few signed examples of William W. Kennedy’s works are known, which has hi...

The members of the so-called “Prior-Hamblin school” weren’t a school at all. Colleagues? Competitors? We still barely know. The five usual suspects - W.M. Prior, S.J. Hamblin, G.G. Hartwell, W W. Kennedy, and E.W. Blake - are constantly compared, mixed up, and conflated. However, despite their profound similarities, they all had their own quirks - especially when it comes to a pair of eyes. Part 1 of this post will address, illustrate, and explain the PHS's five unique methods for the so-called windows to the soul. The PHS problem has been tackled by exceptional folk art scholars for generations before me, so I don't expect this post to solve it. However, I hope that it will offer some useful clues.  Read on for the Eyes of the Prior-Hamblins.  - - -