Lot Essay
Although known through grainy black and white illustration, this light and color-filled work, has been lost to sight for more than thirty years. In its fully realized expression of the easy, but vital, interrelationship of adults and children, man and animals, work and play, that creates the natural peace and well-being of rural life, it is a major example of Homer's paintings on pastoral themes of the first half of the decade of the 1870s. Homer clearly intended the work to be an important exhibition piece. Such complex compositions, involving a wealth of subject detail and activity are infrequent in Homer's work of this period. Snap the Whip (Butler Art Institute, Youngstown), The Country School (St. Louis Art Museum), The Morning Bell (Yale University Art Gallery) come to mind. As in these substantially larger canvases, Homer demonstrates in Uncle Ned at Home his masterly ability to arrange multiple elements to form a coherent narrative statement.
However, the aspect of this painting which draws to our attention, as it did contemporary critics, is the dominant presence of the African-American man and boy. The critic of the New York Sun, in reviewing the work in the National Academy of Design Annual Exhibition of 1875 took equal note of its intrinsic character and unusual principle figure: "'Uncle Ned at Home,' is a homely idyl, in which sentiment, nature, and character are equally combined... as a delineator of negro character and physiognomy, Mr. Homer may at once take the foremost place among American artists. His gentleman of color are unique." Yet in modern times Uncle Ned at Home has assumed a significance as documentary evidence in construction of Homer's biography which has overshadowed appreciation of its considerable artistic qualities.
Although Downes (a far from infallible biographer) stated that Homer visited Virginia in 1876, most later writers, including Goodrich, have placed him in Virginia a year earlier, because of this painting's dating, coupled with its commonly accepted title. It has thus become pivotal to Homer scholars' interpretation of the source of inspiration and expressive intentions of a group of oils and watercolors of 1875 in which Homer concentrated on the figure of an African-American boy. However, both its inscribed date and popular title are misleading.
Hendricks intuited that a painting Homer showed at the Century early in January 1874, was the same work he showed at the National Academy of Design in April 1875 as Uncle Ned at Home. Given its highly speculative nature, it is not surprising that Hendrick's proposition has been generally ignored or contested in subsequent Homer literature. However, his theory was correct. The painting Homer would send to the Academy fifteen months later under a different title was clearly described by a reporter for the New York Evening Post in his 12 January 1874 review of the Century exhibition: "Mr. Winslow Homer contributed a study from nature, 'A Dove Cote.' It gives the figures of a jolly old colored man and several children, with an old shed over which doves are diving, while others have settled upon its roof. The subject is broadly treated and fairly sparkles in its effect of sunlight and color."
While Uncle Ned at Home may be presumed to have been conceived and executed in 1873, there is no doubt that the signature and date the work presently bears were applied by Homer, himself. The question is why would the artist post-date the work. Throughout his career Homer altered paintings after he had initially exhibited them. It is, therefore, reasonable to believe he made some change in The Dove Cote which he considered substantial enough to warrant revising its dating. However, contemporary circumstance in the New York art world should also be taken into consideration.
As opportunities for exhibition in New York proliferated in the 1870s, the National Academy of Design felt increasingly the threat to its Annual Exhibition of the loss of novelty in its content, as well as the loss of sales on which the Academy's survival depended. Early in 1874 the Academy Council moved, gently at first, to put a ruling of 1847, previously honored in the breach, into effect. Its circular for that year's Annual included an urgent appeal that "Exhibitors withhold from the Clubs and receptions the works which they intend sending to the Academy." After a year when this effort to restrain artists' exhibition options had engendered considerable tension, the appeal was elevated to a strict injunction. The circular for the 1875 Annual include the Council's ruling: "Works that have been seen at any Club or other Reception will be considered to have been exhibited and are therefore ineligible." Sanford Gifford resigned his Academy membership over this issue. Homer may well have thought to avoid confrontation and rejection by changing both date and title of a work previously shown at a New York club before submitting it to the Annual of 1875.
Homer retained the title Uncle Ned at Home for most occasions when he placed the work for exhibition. (As pointed out by Wood and Dalton, "Uncle Ned" was understood in the mid-nineteenth century to characterize an elderly African-American male type; the probable origin of the term was a popular Stephen Foster song, "Old Uncle Ned," of 1848.) Thomas Clarke, the distinguished collector of American art who later became Homer's major patron and champion, apparently preferred Uncle Ned's Happy Family; the next owner shortened this to A Happy Family. It was not until about the turn of the century, when the painting was in the possession of Col. Frank Hecker, a prominent collecting colleague of Charles Lang Freer, that "in Virginia" was appended to the title. Identification of the scene as A Happy Family in Virginia acquired currency as the caption to the first published illustration of the painting in Downe's 1911 biography.
So long as Uncle Ned has been accepted as being "in Virginia" in 1875, Homer's group of oil and watercolor paintings focused on the African-American boy, first exhibited in the early months of 1876, have been widely (but not invariably) seen as Homer's response to a Southern experience. Remove Uncle Ned from a Southern state, and back in time of execution, and only the color of the skin of the boy in the later group remains as a basis for placing Homer in the South in 1875. In fact, he need not have traveled so far; although concentrated in, and associated with the South, African-Americans were widely settled throughout the country.
The naturalism and particularity of detail in every feature of Uncle Ned at Home suggests it is a product of Homer's direct and specific experience of the farm yard and its proprietor. Just where Homer became acquainted with the characters and setting cannot be positively determined. Given the foliage and apparent climatic condition of the scene, the late summer of 1873 is the likely timing of the encounter. Homer's summer itineraries in this period have to be deduced from a combination of occasional newspaper references to his activities, and speculation. He is known to have been in Gloucester from late June into late August 1873; his many watercolors from these months include none of the subject elements of this painting. His whereabouts are unaccounted for between leaving Gloucester and late October when he was back in the city. It is not unreasonable to speculate that Homer passed some of that time in one of his favorite haunts in this period, Hurley, New York, and that he found "Uncle Ned" there.
The lush landscape settings of several of the related group of paintings dating from 1875, make that summer's itinerary significant: Homer passed much of June and July in Massachusetts and Maine; from August into October he was in Hurley. The next summer was in all probability the actual occasion of Homer's first post-war visit to Virginia. However, by late August 1876 he was again in Hurley and reported to be working there on a painting again featuring young African-Americans, The Watermelon Boys (Cooper-Hewitt Museum), first exhibited in December 1876. This painting, in its conception as well as repetition of a familiar model, may be considered the last in the informal series for which Uncle Ned at Home is seminal. These paintings present a world where the races, if not economically equal, share a life experience; a young boy does the work of a small farm, often in company with his elders, passes idle time in a barn, goes to school, and may, with a white friend, play a prank on a neighbor. This series is singular and admirable in its recognition of the African-American presence in American society, yet fits comfortably into Homer's predominant theme of the earlier 1870s, the commonplace occupations and preoccupations of rural life.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Spanierman Gallery/CUNY/Goodrich/Whitney catalogue raisonné of the works of Winslow Homer. We are grateful to Abigail Booth Gerdts, director of the project, for the writing of this essay.
However, the aspect of this painting which draws to our attention, as it did contemporary critics, is the dominant presence of the African-American man and boy. The critic of the New York Sun, in reviewing the work in the National Academy of Design Annual Exhibition of 1875 took equal note of its intrinsic character and unusual principle figure: "'Uncle Ned at Home,' is a homely idyl, in which sentiment, nature, and character are equally combined... as a delineator of negro character and physiognomy, Mr. Homer may at once take the foremost place among American artists. His gentleman of color are unique." Yet in modern times Uncle Ned at Home has assumed a significance as documentary evidence in construction of Homer's biography which has overshadowed appreciation of its considerable artistic qualities.
Although Downes (a far from infallible biographer) stated that Homer visited Virginia in 1876, most later writers, including Goodrich, have placed him in Virginia a year earlier, because of this painting's dating, coupled with its commonly accepted title. It has thus become pivotal to Homer scholars' interpretation of the source of inspiration and expressive intentions of a group of oils and watercolors of 1875 in which Homer concentrated on the figure of an African-American boy. However, both its inscribed date and popular title are misleading.
Hendricks intuited that a painting Homer showed at the Century early in January 1874, was the same work he showed at the National Academy of Design in April 1875 as Uncle Ned at Home. Given its highly speculative nature, it is not surprising that Hendrick's proposition has been generally ignored or contested in subsequent Homer literature. However, his theory was correct. The painting Homer would send to the Academy fifteen months later under a different title was clearly described by a reporter for the New York Evening Post in his 12 January 1874 review of the Century exhibition: "Mr. Winslow Homer contributed a study from nature, 'A Dove Cote.' It gives the figures of a jolly old colored man and several children, with an old shed over which doves are diving, while others have settled upon its roof. The subject is broadly treated and fairly sparkles in its effect of sunlight and color."
While Uncle Ned at Home may be presumed to have been conceived and executed in 1873, there is no doubt that the signature and date the work presently bears were applied by Homer, himself. The question is why would the artist post-date the work. Throughout his career Homer altered paintings after he had initially exhibited them. It is, therefore, reasonable to believe he made some change in The Dove Cote which he considered substantial enough to warrant revising its dating. However, contemporary circumstance in the New York art world should also be taken into consideration.
As opportunities for exhibition in New York proliferated in the 1870s, the National Academy of Design felt increasingly the threat to its Annual Exhibition of the loss of novelty in its content, as well as the loss of sales on which the Academy's survival depended. Early in 1874 the Academy Council moved, gently at first, to put a ruling of 1847, previously honored in the breach, into effect. Its circular for that year's Annual included an urgent appeal that "Exhibitors withhold from the Clubs and receptions the works which they intend sending to the Academy." After a year when this effort to restrain artists' exhibition options had engendered considerable tension, the appeal was elevated to a strict injunction. The circular for the 1875 Annual include the Council's ruling: "Works that have been seen at any Club or other Reception will be considered to have been exhibited and are therefore ineligible." Sanford Gifford resigned his Academy membership over this issue. Homer may well have thought to avoid confrontation and rejection by changing both date and title of a work previously shown at a New York club before submitting it to the Annual of 1875.
Homer retained the title Uncle Ned at Home for most occasions when he placed the work for exhibition. (As pointed out by Wood and Dalton, "Uncle Ned" was understood in the mid-nineteenth century to characterize an elderly African-American male type; the probable origin of the term was a popular Stephen Foster song, "Old Uncle Ned," of 1848.) Thomas Clarke, the distinguished collector of American art who later became Homer's major patron and champion, apparently preferred Uncle Ned's Happy Family; the next owner shortened this to A Happy Family. It was not until about the turn of the century, when the painting was in the possession of Col. Frank Hecker, a prominent collecting colleague of Charles Lang Freer, that "in Virginia" was appended to the title. Identification of the scene as A Happy Family in Virginia acquired currency as the caption to the first published illustration of the painting in Downe's 1911 biography.
So long as Uncle Ned has been accepted as being "in Virginia" in 1875, Homer's group of oil and watercolor paintings focused on the African-American boy, first exhibited in the early months of 1876, have been widely (but not invariably) seen as Homer's response to a Southern experience. Remove Uncle Ned from a Southern state, and back in time of execution, and only the color of the skin of the boy in the later group remains as a basis for placing Homer in the South in 1875. In fact, he need not have traveled so far; although concentrated in, and associated with the South, African-Americans were widely settled throughout the country.
The naturalism and particularity of detail in every feature of Uncle Ned at Home suggests it is a product of Homer's direct and specific experience of the farm yard and its proprietor. Just where Homer became acquainted with the characters and setting cannot be positively determined. Given the foliage and apparent climatic condition of the scene, the late summer of 1873 is the likely timing of the encounter. Homer's summer itineraries in this period have to be deduced from a combination of occasional newspaper references to his activities, and speculation. He is known to have been in Gloucester from late June into late August 1873; his many watercolors from these months include none of the subject elements of this painting. His whereabouts are unaccounted for between leaving Gloucester and late October when he was back in the city. It is not unreasonable to speculate that Homer passed some of that time in one of his favorite haunts in this period, Hurley, New York, and that he found "Uncle Ned" there.
The lush landscape settings of several of the related group of paintings dating from 1875, make that summer's itinerary significant: Homer passed much of June and July in Massachusetts and Maine; from August into October he was in Hurley. The next summer was in all probability the actual occasion of Homer's first post-war visit to Virginia. However, by late August 1876 he was again in Hurley and reported to be working there on a painting again featuring young African-Americans, The Watermelon Boys (Cooper-Hewitt Museum), first exhibited in December 1876. This painting, in its conception as well as repetition of a familiar model, may be considered the last in the informal series for which Uncle Ned at Home is seminal. These paintings present a world where the races, if not economically equal, share a life experience; a young boy does the work of a small farm, often in company with his elders, passes idle time in a barn, goes to school, and may, with a white friend, play a prank on a neighbor. This series is singular and admirable in its recognition of the African-American presence in American society, yet fits comfortably into Homer's predominant theme of the earlier 1870s, the commonplace occupations and preoccupations of rural life.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Spanierman Gallery/CUNY/Goodrich/Whitney catalogue raisonné of the works of Winslow Homer. We are grateful to Abigail Booth Gerdts, director of the project, for the writing of this essay.