Plowboys (also known as Boys Plowing)
John Thomas Nolf traveled to Chicago on a first-class train ticket he won in a poker game. During his childhood, he lived in various cities, first in Allentown, Pennsylvania, next in Joplin, Missouri, and later in Pendleton, Oregon. His father fought at Gettysburg and was a mining engineer. Always drawing as a child, his interest in art began during his employment in the newspaper trade, at one time working at the Chicago Tribune and the Inter-Ocean. Nolf pursued his studies at night, attending the School of the Art Institute and the J. Francis Smith Art Academy, located at 46 West Jackson Boulevard. He moved to Grand Detour, a small town in Illinois, which became his home for much of his adult life.
About 110 miles west of Chicago, Grand Detour was the site of an active artist’s colony and Nolf became one the town’s celebrity artists. He was once described as a "local Will Rogers without chewing gum or the lariat." [see C.J. Bulliet, "Artists of Chicago Past and Present": No. 29, Chicago Daily News, September 7, 1935].
The residents of Grand Detour provided subject matter for Nolf, and he delighted in painting these sympathetic, hard-working characters. Boys Ploughing heralds not the land but the young farmers, likely father and son or brothers? Their large frames occupy the majority of the picture surface, aggrandizing them. The ploughs on which they toil, and the landscape of rolling hills are merely hinted. Rather, a big blue sky, resplendent with shifting clouds, provides the backdrop for these agrarian heroes.
