Description
Overview
Porcine is a large, graphic oil painting dated 1967 and signed on the reverse by Robert L. Riebling of Rochester, Minnesota. A pale pink pig walks across a red-and-cream checkerboard, beneath a flat cobalt sky and above a periwinkle-and-marigold checkered floor, all framed by a wide chartreuse border. The pig isn’t painted over the grid. Instead the checkerboard itself shifts to lavender-pink and cream inside the animal’s outline, so the pig appears as a change in the pattern. This figure/ground play is consistent with late-1960s hard-edge and Pop painting, filtered through Midwestern farm imagery: gingham tablecloths, quilt blocks, and barn-quilt geometry. The title is a dry Latin pun meaning “pig-like.”
The painting carries its original entry label from the Charles H. MacNider Museum Area Show, 1967. The MacNider, in Mason City, Iowa, opened in 1966, which suggests this was entered in one of the museum’s earliest juried regional exhibitions.
The painting is believed to have been acquired by Thomas Muir “Tom” Wilson (1930–2011), a Cranbrook-trained photographer and designer, during his years teaching at the Minneapolis School of Art, before he and Sherry Wilson founded Craft World Tours in 1969. It comes from the Wilsons’ personal holdings.
Local pickup only, Rochester, NY area. Because of its size (about 4 feet square), this painting is not available for shipping.
Design & Craftsmanship
- Function & Form: An approximately 48″ x 48″ square wall painting. The canvas is wrapped over a wooden strip frame with black-painted outer edges and a central vertical stretcher bar. Depth is estimated at about 1.5″. The original twisted hanging wire is still attached.
- Artistry & Ornamentation: Oil on canvas in saturated, flat color fields: cobalt, cadmium red, cream, lavender-pink, periwinkle, marigold and chartreuse. The grid is hand-laid, and the brushwork is visible within each square, giving a painterly surface to a hard-edge design.
- Structural Base: The reverse is backed with hardboard panels, with the corners reinforced by triangular hardboard gussets. The gussets are cut from paint-spattered boards, likely the artist’s own former palettes or earlier works, which is authentic studio evidence. The reverse is inscribed in pencil “1967 / ‘PORCINE’ / Robert L. Riebling.” The MacNider Area Show label records the title, the artist’s name and address (21 7th St. N.E., Rochester, Minn.), the medium (oil), and “No. of entries: 2.” The price field is obscured by staining. The label’s block printing appears to read “Ribbling,” while the signature is consistent with “Riebling.” No front signature was observed.
Condition Report
- Surface Condition: Fine craquelure, partly in concentric arcs, is visible in the blue and gold squares, along with faint curvilinear marks in the sky band. These are possibly from storage pressure, or possibly an earlier composition showing through. There is general surface grime and scattered dark speckling, most noticeable on the green border and gold squares, consistent with long-term storage. Colors remain bright, and there are no apparent losses to the paint layer in the photographs.
- Structural Integrity: The frame and stretcher appear sound and square. The canvas turnover on the reverse is frayed and torn in places along the top edge and corners, with loose threads, but the painted face appears taut. A light professional surface cleaning is suggested. This item is sold “as-is” with all associated patina and wear inherent to its age and history as part of the Craft World Tours Collection.
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