The Apple Gatherers (1912): Art, History and Details

The Apple Gatherers (1912) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Karl Anderson (American, 1874–1956).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Karl Anderson disliked the industrialized cities of his day and opted to paint rural settings seemingly untouched by modern development. The leisurely activity of apple picking contrasts with demanding work in urban factories, and the young girl dressed in all white may represent idealized innocence. The artist stated that his paintings were meant to capture “the fragrance of the beauty of life.”

Object facts

• Title: The Apple Gatherers
• Date: 1912
• Creator attribution: Karl Anderson (American, 1874–1956)
• Culture: America
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 134 x 127.6 cm (52 3/4 x 50 1/4 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1926.485

A detail from the museum

The apple variety depicted in this painting is the McIntosh, which today accounts for two-thirds of New England’s annual apple harvest.

Collection credit

Bequest of Ralph King

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 until Today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co.], 1937.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.