Popcorn Vendor, Syracuse by Edmund Quincy

Edmund Quincy
1903-1997 | American

Popcorn Vendor, Syracuse

Signed "Quincy" (lower left)
Oil on canvas

An accomplished painter who lived and worked in both New England and abroad, Edmund Quincy’s body of work captured both European and American cities with a unique sense of nostalgia and charm. Born in Biarritz, France, and educated in the United States, Quincy was the descendant of three Boston mayors and related to President John Quincy Adams. Many of Quincy’s works render Boston in a nuanced light that attracted critics both at home and abroad. In fact, a critic writing for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune wrote that Quincy was, “one of the young American painters who are helping to destroy the legend that America is not paintable....In other words, Edmond Quincy’s canvases help to prove to Europeans that America has an atmosphere and a past…”

Still, much of Quincy’s oeuvre captures idyllic scenes from his time spent abroad, mostly in Paris and later Italy where he settled with his wife. Popcorn Vendor, Syracuse illustrates Quincy’s ability to capture a sense of place in his work. The work renders a whimsical scene of a popcorn vendor in a carriage wagon. Though Quincy lived both in the United States and abroad, this scene likely captures a local confectioner working in Syracuse Sicily, a beautiful Italian seaside town and not the city in upstate New York. Quincy’s scene emanates with nostalgia and one can almost smell the wafting aromas of freshly popped popcorn through the frame. Quincy’s colorful scene perfectly exemplifies his unique and charming oeuvre.

Born in France in 1903 to Josiah and Ellen Quincy, Edmund Quincy took his place among one of the oldest and most venerated American families, which included several mayors of Boston, a Harvard president, Abigail Adams, and John Quincy Adams among its many members. After the untimely death of his mother in 1904, Quincy returned the family to the United States and began his education at a private boys' school in Virginia, later continuing in the footsteps of several of his ancestors by attending Harvard College from 1921 through 1925. While Quincy never received his degree from Harvard, he began studying painting at the Boston Museum School of Art and during the same year, left for Paris late in 1925. He traversed all throughout Europe and frequently returned back to New England, amassing a unique and inspired body of work. Quincy had solo exhibitions in Paris, London, New York and other American cities. Quincy's work is in the permanent collections of the Grenoble Museum (France), the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Arizona.

Circa 1950

Canvas: 28" high by 25 5/8" wide
Frame: 35 3/4" high by 33 3/8" wide