John Thomas Nolf, “The Clam Diggers,” or “The Barbary Coast,” Oil on Canvas, 1937

Photograph of a painting.

Two male figures carry heavy, rustic sacks, backs bent under the weight. The foremost figure is shirtless and the other is wearing what looks to be a sleeveless undershirt. The scene is backlit by a clouded sky dominated by pinks, purples, and yellows. The central part of the cloud is intensely white. Light and shadows in the picture combine with the subjects’ postures and loads to suggest it is nearing the end of their workday. Nolf completed a series of paintings featuring two local boys. This painting is part of that “Farm Boy” series.

Nolf showed this painting under the title “The Barbary Coast” in the Forty-First Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity at the Art Institute of Chicago. The show ran from February 4 – March 7, 1937. (Records compiled by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources note that 45 distinct species of mollusks used to live in the Rock River, recent studies have shown that number declined by nearly half.)

33 1/8 x 42″

(1871-1950)

John Thomas Nolf came to Chicago in 1893 to work as a newspaper typesetter and took night courses at the Art Institute. Here he studied under John Vanderpoel. In addition to oil painting of landscapes and figures, Nolf also created cartoons and commercial art for advertisements. Nolf became the de facto leader of the Grand Detour Art Colony—which spawned from the Eagle’s Nest Colony after Charles Francis Browne started bringing students to Grand Detour to paint over the summers.

His works are in the collections of the Union League Club in Chicago, the Vanderpoel Art Association, the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, and the public schools of Kenilworth and Winnetka, Illinois and Gary, Indiana.