Middletown Fourth Ward

Artist Julia Gulick Dodd

Periodca. 1955 - 1960

MediumWatercolor on paper

Dimensions10.9 × 15.25 in. (27.7 × 38.7 cm)

SignedSigned lower left, "Julia Dodd."

ClassificationsLandscapes & Still Life

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry G. Gulick, 2017

Object number2017.2.16

DescriptionA landscape street scene with three two-story houses facing a road in the foreground that curves to the right. One house has a gray roof, and the other two green roofs. All three have columned porches with red roofs. A dirt driveway joins the paved road from the left foreground. The trees surrounding the houses are largely bare in either early spring or late fall foliage. Two cars, one blue and the other gray, are parked in front of the houses, with a staked farm wagon between them. A human figure walks between the blue car and wagon, headed for the artist's vantage point. The sky is a mottled gray.
NotesAn early work in watercolor by Julia Gulick Dodd of the old Fourth Ward in Middletown village, Monmouth County. It closely resembles a painting dated February 1949 by her father, Henry Thomas Gulick. The two, however, differ in two important points - the Gulick version is a snow scene, and he depicted his family sleigh on the roadway whereas his daughter Julia chose what appears to be a Volkswagen Beetle. The dirt driveway to the left led to the Beekman family residence and farm. The paved roadway is Red Hill Road. The two houses to the right still stand, but that on the left, part of a tannery and leather works owned by the Taylor family, burned in the early 1980s.

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