For the Love of Barbara Allen (Young girl enters room with two women by stove)

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John Stockton De Martelly
For the Love of Barbara Allen (Young girl enters room with two women by stove)
1942

About the Item

John de Martely's image, "for the Love of Barbara Allen" is in the collection of the National Gallery, the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco and Yale University. No other old English or Scottish ballad even comes close to the popularity of “Barbara Allen.” Brought over to America by the earliest pioneers, its roots can be traced to at least the year 1666 when Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary on January 2, “In perfect pleasure I was to hear her [Mrs. Knipp, an actress] sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen.” Even Abraham Lincoln sang “Barbara Allen” while growing up in rural Indiana. In America, “Barbara Allen” was sometimes called “Barbara Allen’s Cruelty or the Young Man's Tragedy.” It was also known as “Barbara Ellen,” and “Bonny Barbara Allan.” In the beginning of the 19th century “Barbara Allen” was used both as a children’s game and as an instrumental at dance parties. In the mid 18th century the tune of “Barbara Allen” was also used for several religious texts. During the Civil War, it provided the melody of a song called “Brother Green,” which told the last words of a dying soldier. By the end of the 19th century, ballads such as “Barbara Allen” were all but forgotten in the British Isles where they originated. When we think back to the roots of bluegrass music, it’s important to remember that ballads like “Barbara Allen” were the bedrock that bluegrass music was built on. For certain, the ancestors of the first generation of bluegrass singers like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Carter Stanley, Don Reno and Mac Wiseman were so familiar with ballads like “Barbara Allen” that they could sing all the verses from memory. Even today, "Barbara Allen" has maintained its status as America’s best- known ballad. In recent years, it has been recorded more than three hundred times. A short list of but a few of the artists who have recorded “Barbara Allen” : Eddie Arnold, Joan Baez, Mac Wiseman, Hylo Brown, Doris Day, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Dave Dudley, The Everly Brothers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Art Garfunkel, Crystal Gayle, Tex Ridder and Dolly Parton. Barbara Allen ‘Twas in the merry month of May When all gay flowers were blooming Sweet William on his deathbed lay For the love of Barbara Allen. He sent his servant to the town He sent him to her dwelling Saying; Master’s sick and very sick, And for your sake he’s dying. Slowly, slowly, she gets up And to his bedside going She drew the curtains to one side And says: Young man, you’re dying. He reached out his pale, white hands Intending for to touch her She jumped, she skipped all over the room And says: Young man, I won’t have you. He turned his pale face to the wall And bursted out a-crying Saying: Adieu to thee, adieu to all Adieu to Barbara Allen. She had not more than reached the town She heard the death bells tolling She looked to the east, she looked to the west And saw his pale face coming. Hand down, hand down that corpse of clay And let me gaze upon him The more she gazed, the more she grieved And she bursted out a-crying. Cursed, cursed, be my name And cursed be my nature For this man’s life I might have saved If I had done my duty. O mother, O mother, go make my bed And make it long and narrow Sweet William died for me today And I’ll die for him tomorrow. Sweet William died on Saturday night Miss Barbara died on Sunday The old lady died for the love of both She died on Easter Monday. Sweet William was carried to one churchyard Miss Barbara to another A briar grew out of one of their graves A rose tree out of the other. They grew as high as the old church top They could not grow any higher They bound and tied in a true love’s knot For all true lovers to admire. John Stockton de Martelly was a lithographer, etcher, painter, illustrator, teacher and writer. He was born in Philadelphia and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; and in Florence, Italy, and at the Royal College of Art in London. In the 1930s and 1940s, he taught printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute to the same students who studied painting with Thomas Hart Benton. De Martelly became a close friend of Benton and was influenced by his Regionalist style. When Benton was no longer at the Art Institute, the Board of Governors offered de Martelly Benton's job as head of the Painting Department, to which he declined. De Martelly's lithographs, sold through the Associated American Artists Galleries in New York in the 1930s and 1940s, captured the essence of the rural American landscape. Eventually, de Martelly took a position as the artist-in-residence at Michigan State University in East Lansing. By the late 1940s he abandoned Regionalism for Abstract Expressionism, and closely studied Honore Daumier. His drawings, paintings, and prints are now in the collections of many museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Kresge Art Museum in East Lansing, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Creator:
John Stockton De Martelly (1903 - 1980, American)
Creation Year:
1942
Dimensions:
Height: 9.69 in (24.62 cm)Width: 14 in (35.56 cm)
Medium:
Lithograph
Movement & Style:
American Modern
Period:
1940-1949
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New Orleans, LA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU84137545212