Painting

Title:

Cozy Winter Nights

Object Name:

Painting

Object ID:

2018.035.01

Creator:

Posever, Zena (1911-2012)Artist

Date:

1957

Description:

Portrait of Charles Irving (Charlie) Nelson (1887-1970), titled "Cozy Winter Nights," by Zena Posever (1911-2012), 1957. Oil on canvas. Abstract expressionist portrait of Charlie Nelson dressed in his work clothes, sitting by a wood stove in a cabin outside Washington, NH. He is reading a newspaper and has a cat on his lap. Signed "Zena Posever / 57" in brown paint, lower left. In period gray barnboard frame. Paper label adhered to back of frame, top center, inscribed in ink, "ZENA POSEVER / 6911 RUE BORDEAUX / MIAMI BEACH, FL. / 1423 BIARRITZ DR 33141 / [phone number]". Titled with black marking pen on back of frame, top right, " 'COZY WINTER NIGHTS' / Z. POSEVER".

Material:

Textile

Dimensions:

H-34.25 W-28.25 inches

Provenance:

The painting depicts Charlie Nelson in a cabin used by deer hunters and loggers across the road from the Chase farm outside Washington, NH, where Zena Posever and her daughter Verna stayed as summer guests in 1957. The painting was donated by Verna Posever Curtis.

Charles Irving Nelson was born in 1887 in Roxbury, MA, the son of Joseph R. Nelson and Etta G. Jones. When Nelson was three years old, his father gave up being a streetcar conductor in Boston and moved the family to Windsor, NH. Charles' parents were the third Nelson generation to live there. At about 20 years old, he went to work in a sawmill to help support his parents. His curiosity and his self-education never ceased, reading books and newspapers, including The New York Times. Nelson inherited his father's sizable farm in Windsor. Like his father before him, Charlie held a number of town positions over the years: selectman, town clerk, and member of the school board. His main occupation for many years was driving the U. S. Mail. In 1938, when he was the delegate from Windsor to the State Constitutional Convention, he married Elba Korb Chase (1891-1967). She was the first woman to get her name on the ballot for New Hampshire governor, running first in 1934 and again in 1938. In the late 1940s, Charlie lost his mail job as a result of FBI interference due to Elba's communism. Charlie kept the woodshed full of wood from his own land for cooking on a wood stove, hot water, and heating. They raised vegetables and chickens and milked their own cow. The Nelsons had helped get Social Security legislation passed as part of the New Deal. Charles Nelson died in 1970.

Zena Goldin Posever was a painter, sculptor, and art teacher. She was born in Korop, Ukraine, and immigrated to Philadelphia in 1915 to join her father, Solomon Goldin, a watchmaker. She was active in the labor movement in Pennsylvania during the Depression and designed marionettes for the WPA Federal Theatre Project. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1939-1942. She had studios in Miami Beach, FL, and Winthrop, MA, in the 1950s. While in Winthrop, she traveled in Hillsborough and Sullivan Counties, NH, including a stay in Washington, NH, in the summer of 1957. She returned to her studio in Miami Beach in 1958.

Credit Line:

Gift of Verna Posever Curtis

People:

Nelson, Charles I. (1887-1970), Posever, Zena (1911-2012)

Subjects:

Cats, Stoves, Cabins, Abstract paintings