Howard Murry: Paintings Of Valle Crucis, 1930-1968

Artist Howard Murry (1891-1968), originally named Howard Murry Dumbell, documented the lives of the people of Valle Crucis, North Carolina, in his oils and watercolors. His works depict the natural beauty of the mountains, the architecture of the area, and the everyday life of the local people. However, as this study of Valle Crucis, Howard Murry and his art reveals, he did not paint a true picture of the community. He chose to eliminate all signs of change and progress. Murry's nostalgic paintings of rural life in Appalachia are part of a long tradition of American landscape and genre painting which by the 1930s culminated in the American Scene Movement.