Like ours

One of Margit’s most popular scenes

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One of Margit’s earlier paintings (her first in 1961) was a landscape of a bright summer day in the country. In it, a wide stream flows placidly into the foreground between golden fields. On the stream’s bank a large tree, just right of center, dominates the scene, balanced by a farmstead on the left in the middle-distance.

She and Palmer liked how the painting turned out so much that they hung it in their living room. She called it… “Summer stream & tree”.

61-01 “Summer stream & tree”
  • ID: 61-01 “Summer stream & tree”
  • Details: 22″ x 28″ / Initial owner: Kept by the artist


At right, Palmer shows off a horse-hide coat to a grandchild. Notice the original “Summer stream & tree” painting on the wall behind them.

Margit painted the scene over and over. Within a year or two, when she listed the latest painting in her record book, she wrote it down as “Like ours”.

Margit created at least twenty “Like ours” paintings, with subtle variations to the tree, the buildings, the season, and so on. Below is a gallery of some of her paintings. Click to enlarge and page through.

61-01 “Summer stream & tree”
66-05 “Like ours”
65-11 “Like ours”
67-26 “Like ours”
68-16 “Like ours”
71-12 “Like ours fall colors”
“…”
74-10 “Like ours dark trees water”

Spring stream?

Remember, the original “like ours” was called “Summer stream”. Could the “Like ours” series of pictures be so connected to the summer season that a rendition of it at another time of the year just wasn’t the same thing? Here’s a painting whose composition is so similar to “like ours”, but it’s set in spring—and Margit didn’t identify it as a “Like ours—spring”.

  • ID: 71-05 “Creek by willow spring”
  • Details: 16″ x 20″ / Orig price: $15.00 / Initial owner: L. Isberg

    Besides being set in the spring, this one differs from “Like Ours” paintings by the tree’s large circles left by missing limbs. It’s an old, scarred tree, even if the spring day promises one more year by the creek’s side.