Head of a Boy

c. 1930

Richmond Barthé

Sculptor, American, 1901 - 1989

This free-standing, bronze-colored sculpture shows the head, neck, and the center of the collarbone of a young, bald boy. In this photograph, the boy faces us with his chin slightly lowered. He looks out from under a projecting brow. He has a flaring nose and his full lips are closed. The hollow of his throat is deep, and light glints off the tendons to each side. His chest is cropped to either side of his neck to create a trapezoidal shape just below his collarbone. The sculpture sits on a thin wooden base. The background is fog gray.
Skip thumbnail navigation
Back to thumbnail navigation
This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.
On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G15

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Article:  Your Tour of Black Artists at the National Gallery

These 10 works by Black artists are on view in our galleries, so you can see them during your next visit.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr. [1952-1997], Washington, by 1994;[1] gift 1996 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] In a letter dated 12 April 1994 from the Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum to Tibbs, the sculpture was requested for loan (referred to as Head of a Youth) to a planned exhibition of the artist's work that never came to fruition. NGA Library, Vertical Files, Tibbs Archive, Series I, Box 2, Richmond Barthé file; copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2013

  • African American Art from the Collection of the Corcoran, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2013.

Inscriptions

incised on the back of the neck: BARTHE

Wikidata ID

Q63864380

You may be interested in

Loading Results