Two Oxen with Yellow Bells

About Two Oxen with Yellow Bells

This folk art painting by legacy artist Maud Lewis features oxen in winter.

This is a very rare and important offering from Nova Scotia’s most beloved folk artist, Maud Lewis, whose iconic artwork can be found in many fine art collections around the world. Lewis painted the world she saw through the window of her tiny wooden house and was known best for capturing country life in cheerful, bright colours.
She often painted oxen wearing decorative harnesses, but this particular painting captures two that feature a rare perspective—three legs are visible on one oxen, the other has four. Lewis was usually consistent in her renderings and didn’t often alter classic images in this way. Both oxen would usually be painted showing the same number of legs. This is a winter scene—the two black and white oxen stand on snow-covered ground facing the viewer and framed by dark green fir trees. Their fancy harnesses are red and golden yellow, adorned with bells.

“I used to ‘paint’ with Crayolas a lot. I guess I was practising.” Maud Lewis

“From time to time in the world of art, there emerges someone with extraordinary talent that sets them apart from their contemporaries and affords them a special place in the hearts of those who come in contact with the work. Maud Lewis was such an artist.” Lance Woolaver, Canadian author

Maud Lewis was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, in 1901. She was never formally trained as an artist, but as a young child used to paint Christmas cards with her mother. As an adult, she sold paintings from the house she shared with her husband for five dollars. Her happy paintings belied the hard, impoverished life she led—disfiguring birth defects and crippling arthritis that made it difficult to hold a paintbrush. Lewis died at age 69. The little one-room house was restored and is on permanent exhibit at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Her artwork is held there and in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Maud Lewis is the subject of several biographies and two National Film Board of Canada documentaries. In 2017, a biopic of Maud's life titled "Maudie" was released, starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke.