The Politicians

c. 1912

Guy Pène du Bois

Painter, American, 1884 - 1958

Two pale-skinned men in black dress suits are shown from the chest up against a parchment-brown wall in this stylized, vertical painting. The men face each other in profile in the lower left quadrant of the composition. To our left, a bald, portly man wears a black bowler hat, and a sliver of a white collar lines the neck of his heavy coat. The large ear we can see casts a deep shadow, and he has a sharp nose and a pronounced double chin. His lips are pressed together as he looks at the other man. His companion’s mouth is wide open and his head tipped back. He has a black brushy moustache and hair, and his thin brows are raised. Lines across his forehead and his hollow cheeks are shadowed. He wears a white shirt with a high, upturned collar and a black tie and jacket. Both men stand in front of scuffed beige wall. Some loose brushstrokes hint at posters or announcements there, though no detail can be made out. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Guy Pène du Bois.”
This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.

Guy Pène du Bois painted The Politicians during his last year as a reporter for William Randolph Hearst’s New York American. A great admirer of the satirical French painter Honoré Daumier and keen observer of social and political life in New York, Pène du Bois often caricatured the city’s lawyers, policemen, tycoons, and politicians. The middle-aged, portly Tammany Hall types found in The Politicians reflect the artist’s sardonic view of their profession. Pène du Bois painted another work in the same vein titled The Politician (c. 1912, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia) that was exhibited at the landmark Armory Show in 1913.

Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on fabric-covered millboard

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 40.6 x 30.7 cm (16 x 12 1/16 in.)
    framed: 56.5 x 46.4 x 5.7 cm (22 1/4 x 18 1/4 x 2 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.138

More About this Artwork

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: The Politicians, c. 1912

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist; (Kraushaar Galleries, New York); sold 24 April 1920 to Chester Dale [1888-1962], New York; bequest 1968 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1937

  • New York Realists, 1900-1914, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1937, no. 44.

1955

  • An Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture Commemorating the Armory Show of 1913 and the First Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917, American Academy of Arts and Letters and National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, 1955, no. 56.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1965

  • Paintings other than French in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 54, repro.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 50, repro.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 145, repro.

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 212, repro. 214.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 257, repro.

2004

  • Fahlman, Betsy. Guy Pène du Bois: Painter of Modern Life. New York, 2004: 28, fig. 31.

Inscriptions

lower right: Guy Pène du Bois

Wikidata ID

Q20191682

You may be interested in

Loading Results