Faulkner, Estelle Oldham

"Ascent," oil on canvas (24 x 19 1/4 in.; 610 x 490 mm), framed, [Oxford, Mississippi or Charlottesville, Virginia,  c. late 1950's– early 1960's]

Exhibited: Southside Gallery, Oxford, Mississippi, November 2012

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
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"Ascent," William Faulkner's favorite painting by his wife, Estelle.  Estelle Oldham Faulkner (1896–1972) was, like her husband, a talented artist.  She began painting in China in the 1920's when she was married to Cornell Franklin.  In later life she was attentive to trends in modernism and turned to abstraction. She once told a reporter in Charlottesville, "My inspiration for painting is a snatch of poetry or a sentence out of a book.  I don't paint from nature."  She painted both in her sunny bedroon at Rowan Oak and in a rented studio in Charlottesville.  She chose not to exhibit her paintings as she feared they would not be judged on their own merit, but as the work of the wife of William Faulkner.  According to family members, William Faulkner singled out "Ascent" as his favorite of Estelle's paintings.