Edward Hicks, Primitive Quaker: His Religion in Relation to His Art

Edward Hicks is now recognized as America's foremost primitive painter, and his Peaceable Kingdoms and other works are sought after by museums from coast to coast. Yet when he died in 1849 the local obituaries made no mention of his art, preferring to identify him as "an eminent member and minister of the Society of Friends." This former emphasis is a significant one. For it would be hard to overstate the profound relationship between his religion and his art. In the entire history of painting we can scarcely find an artist, from Fra Angelico down, whose work was more intimately involved with his religious traditions and convictions.

Though the present pamphlet points out the cultural and social evidences of Quakerism in the painting of Edward Hicks, its special emphasis is on the inward aspect of his religion, particularly as revealed in his extraordinary series of Peaceable Kingdoms.