Behind the Art: 'Civics' painting emphasizes voter responsibility

(Editor’s note: Behind the Art is a recurring series highlighting artistic works throughout the county.)

“You pay taxes/Obey the law/Serve in time of war/And vote.”

These lines are from “Civics,” a poem by David Joseph Kutcher that inspired an oil painting by the same name that is included in the Greater Latrobe School District Special Art Collection.

Artist Alan Byrne was chosen to create a work to pair with the poem through a challenge issued by a Pittsburgh-area newspaper. It was acquired for the Greater Latrobe collection in 2016 by the graduating class of 1971.

The painting depicts a young man outside of a voting booth, with figures clad in military uniforms from various eras standing behind him.

“The central figure is trying to make a decision on how to cast his vote, and behind him is what he’s representing — the entire military tradition, with soldiers from all the different campaigns and wars over the years,” said Byrne, 76, of Bellevue.

In the poem, Kutcher writes that, though he may not know the candidates well, he votes to honor the service and sacrifice of his late father, a World War II veteran.

Stylistically, Byrne said, his work refers to the paintings of Norman Rockwell, who was known for his popular depictions of American life and culture, many of them gracing the cover of “The Saturday Evening Post” over more than 50 years.

“He had a wonderful flair for the dramatic, but also the patriotic,” Byrne said. “He did a number of paintings based on elections and voting booths and such.

“I was going for the old-style election, where you actually went in behind the curtain to vote. There’s a little bit of an anachronism there,” he said.

Against the painting’s dark background, the young voter at the left wears a red cap, white shirt and blue jeans. To the right are men in drab uniforms and then a red, white and blue-clad Revolutionary War-era soldier at the far right.

“The colors bookend the painting, uniting the young man with those who have gone before him,” said Barbara Nakles, a member and former chair of the GLSD Art Conservation Trust, which oversees the collection.

“It underscores the tradition and importance of voting,” she said.

Byrne is on the art faculty at the Community College of Allegheny County and a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Society of Artists and the Cranberry Artists Network. He recently showed work in the 50th Annual Hoyt Regional Juried Show at the Hoyt Art Center in New Castle.

“My recent work has moved in a bit of a different direction stylistically,” he said.

He has been modifying Depression-era images taken by photographers for the Farm Security Administration, a New Deal agency.

“I’ve been going through them on the Library of Congress website,” he said. “The nice part about them is that they are public domain, since they are government-generated, so they belong to us.

“I’m giving them visually a looser interpretation of the subject matter, colorizing them with PhotoShop, working on modification and style,” he said.