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| Winslow Homer, The Sutler's Tent, 1863. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, gift of the Ahmanson Foundation |
The Ahmanson Foundation has funded the purchase of Winslow Homer's The Sutler's Tent for the Huntington. Though the painting is small (16-1/4 by 12 in), it fills a large hole in the Huntington's presentation of American art. It had no painting by Homer, the quintessential American artist of his age, nor any direct depiction of the Civil War. The Sutler's Tent was created when Homer was a war artist for Harper's Weekly. Sutlers were civilians who sold supplies, food, and liquor to troops on the front line.
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| Harper's Weekly (after Winslow Homer), Thanksgiving in Camp, November 29, 1862 |
Harper's Weekly reproduced Homer's war art as wood engravings.
The Sutler's Tent is related to a Thanksgiving-themed illustration that ran in November 1862. That means the engraving came before the painting, dated 1863. The horizontal-format print shows many more figures than the painting and clearly shows the tent. (The signage confirms that the soldier at left center is eating half a pie, freehand.) The printed image was likely based on a drawing now at the National Gallery of Art,
Sutler's Tent, Third Pennsylvania Cavalry. Homer evidently felt the tight cropping of the painting made a stronger composition.
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| Winslow Homer, Sutler's Tent, Third Pennsylvania Cavalry, 1862. National Gallery of Art |
The Sutler's Tent was auctioned at Sotheby's New York in 1996 for $550,000. Two years later, a large Homer seascape, Lost on the Grand Banks—which had been on loan to LACMA—was sold privately to Bill Gates. The price was reportedly over $30 million, establishing a new price level for Homer and American paintings.
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| Winslow Homer, Return of the Gleaner, 1867. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art |
Most important Homer paintings have long been in East Coast museums. In 1977 LACMA managed to buy a major Homer,
The Cotton Pickers, by cobbling together funds from 15 trustees. The Huntington, which opened its American galleries in 1984, has sometimes competed against Arkansas' richly funded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Yet even with its Walmart cash, Crystal Bridges has managed to buy only one Homer painting, and it too is a modestly scaled work of the 1860s. Based on the images, I'd say the Huntington got the more compelling picture.
The Ahmanson has designated The Sutler's Tent as a gift in honor of the nation's 250th anniversary. It will go on display in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art on Dec. 7th. There it will be a centerpiece of a room relating to the Civil War and reconstruction. Also on view will be French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's Why Born Enslaved! and a signed Emancipation Proclamation from the Huntington Library's large collection of Civil War material.
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| Detail of The Sutler's Tent |
Comments
"Gleaner" also imports and translates for Americans the Barbizon theme of man against nature. That and the banded composition would come to characterize his best work after 1867, including "The Gulf Stream."
--- J. Garcin
> Bridges) is the better painting
Are we looking at the same artwork?
The face and upper part of the body don't seem well modeled. The face in particular is so tentatively done, I'd swear it's actually not been painted by Homer.
However, if "Return..." really is authentic, it must have been an off day for the guy.
LACMA has a really mediocre Homer too, the one given to the museum before the more recent one (from the 1980s, 1990s?). I believe the work shows the ocean, and the painting is so weak, it really should be treated as a study piece. Regrettably, since LACMA is a newbie, beggars can't be choosers. So maybe a weak Homer hanging next to a better Homer is better than just one Winslow alone?
The museum right now has a new listing of an upcoming impressionist show---hallelujah, it's not contemporary! Their website, however, features a work of a 2nd-tier French painter of the 19th century, which was donated to them last year. As with the Bridge's Winslow Homer, LACMA's impressionist-style painting by Jean Beraud is off---also because of not just the depiction of a face, but also what's supposed to be a metal tree guard of a Parisian street.
In "Tent", the Union soldiers features are undifferentiated. That's consistent with Homer's treatment of white subjects. For another "Civil War" example, see the much better painting "Sharpshooter."
By contrast, the face of the woman in "Gleaner" has more distinctive features. That is consistent with Homer's treatment of subjects to whom he imparted more psychological depth. That is as defined as faces/bodies get in his genre pictures.
In general, Homer is NOT a painter of faces/bodies. He is not an academic painter. It's stupid to judge his work as if that is what matters here.
If you judged his masterpiece "The Gulf Stream" by those standards, it would NOT be a masterpiece. Which is why I am sure if LACMA owned "The Gulf Stream", you would be telling us that the face and body were not well-modeled.
--- J. Garcin
> in "Gleaner" has more
> distinctive features.
Yea, if by more "distinctive" you mean drafting and brush work that are less aesthetically sleek or technically sophisticated.
I was just reading about what I presume are creative experts (or professionals) at a famous amusement park 35 miles south of LACMA. The drafting work of the face of their company's founder was so poorly done, apparently lots of the public have complained about it.
Or a case of 2 groups of, "as if you know anything" versus another group of "as if you know anything."
The presumably less highly paid staff of the Laguna Pageant of the Masters might have done a better job.
Or a 3rd group where a contrarian might say, "as if you know anything."
Oh-kay, uh-huh.
> "mediocre" Homer
To refresh my reaction, your comment made me look up an online image of the work. Sorry, but pieces like that do remind me of the time when I, as a kid, and my family were visiting LACMA.
We were in the elevator of the Ahmanson Gallery, and a woman and her friend/husband (not sure if they were visiting from the East Coast, etc) said that she was tired. I think the guy asked her why she felt that way. She said something about looking at a lot of bad art had worn her out.
I think the guy reacted with sort of a smug or bemused look on his face. But I'm not sure. The remark was as if someone had just farted and everyone in the elevator was too embarrassed to be seen as the culprit. lol.
> in the Met.
Hey, don't gloat, Ted.
BTW, the Met's "Eagle Head, Manchester..." is to me one of Homer's wowsers. If only because an artist from the late 19th century did a work that makes me think of the paintings of a David Hockney from the late 20th century. Damn, time warps or time tunnels do exist!
As for the Met's "A Basket of Clams," that Winslow Homer makes me think of the type of style or imagery that the Lucas Museum will be full of. For better or worse.
In light of LACMA becoming too much like a museum of contemporary art ("but not a very good one"), I'd say for the better.
Well, yes. Homer was, at heart, an illustrator.
https://cdn.sanity.io/files/cctd4ker/production/f7c098314774dac3cb9f1c56add13d72ffd05ea0.pdf
That such works have been stowed away since 2020, while too much space has been devoted to contemporary art (certainly in the Resnick Pavilion, and Hauser-Wirthed or otherwise), says a lot about the people managing the museum.
Yea, okay, LACMA has a tight budget and temporary shows of contemporary art (at least of non-big-name talent) do cost less to organize and present. But Govan and his staff for the past 5 years could have saved even more money by exhibiting their own permanent collection.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan next year (during the time that LACMA's Geffen Galleries are finally open, but before the Lucas is complete) will be showing a special big-time show of Raphael Sanzio.
The link to the bulletin, above, is not correct.
Following see the link:
https://www.metmuseum.org/met-publications/winslow-homer-at-mma-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art-bulletin-v-39-no-4-spring-1982