Blackboard

1877

Winslow Homer

Artist, American, 1836 - 1910

A young woman with pale skin stands with her back to us as she points to a blackboard with a long stick in this vertical watercolor painting. Her body is angled away to our right, and she turns her head so her face is in profile, also to our right. The blue eye we can see looks down under a furrowed brow, and her small lips are closed over a rounded chin. She holds the pointer in her right hand as her left arm tucks across her lower back so that hand hooks into the right elbow. Her honey-blond hair is tied with a light tan ribbon like a headband, and a braid is coiled at the back of her head. She wears a checkered white and pale-green pinafore over a long, sage-green dress. The toe of one black shoe peeks out from under the hem. The blackboard behind her is drawn with three rows of geometric shapes outlined in white chalk. Her pointer aims at a circle near the top right corner. The floor and upper half of the wall behind and above the board are pink-tinged tan, and nickel gray fills the lower half of the wall beneath the board. The artist signed and dated the lower right of the blackboard, “Homer '77.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

William Townsend, Boston, nd; Rose Townsend and Elizabeth Townsend, Boston, his nieces, by bequest, nd; Thomas H. Townsend, Boston, their cousin, and William Townsend's great-nephew, by bequest, c. 1975; (Vose Galleries of Boston, 1977); Jo and Julian Ganz, Los Angeles, 1977; gift to NGA, 1990

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1877

  • Tenth Annual Exhibition, American Society of Painters in Water Colors, New York, 22 Jan.-4 March 1877, no. 122

1986

  • Winslow Homer Watercolors, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2 March -11 May 1986. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 6 June-27 July 1986; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 11 Sept.-2 Nov. 1986, no. 31

1991

  • Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the national Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, color repro.

1995

  • Winslow Homer, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1995-1996, no. 85.

2001

  • Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2001-2002, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 83 (shown only in Kansas City).

2005

  • Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2005-2006, unnumbered brochure, detail on cover.

Bibliography

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 325, color repro.

  • Gingold, Diane J., and Elizabeth A.C. Weil. The Corporate Patron. New York, 1991: 108, color repro.

1993

  • Hechinger, Fred M. "About Partnership." On Common Ground (newsletter of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute) (Fall 1993): 20.

1994

  • Scholastic Art 24, (April-May 1994): 10.

1995

  • Winslow Homer. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1995-1996: no. 85.

2001

  • Winslow Homer and the Critics. Exh. cat. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2001-2002: fig. 83.

  • Unger, Miles. The Watercolors of Winslow Homer. New York, 2001: 65, 68.

2005

  • Kelly, Franklin. "Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 33 (Summer 2005): 28, repro.

2008

  • Tedeschi, Martha with Kristi Dahm. Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light, Art Institute of Chicago, 2008: 57, fig. 24.

  • Goodrich, Lloyd and Abigail Booth Gerdts. Record of Works by Winslow Homer. New York, 2008: III: no. 613, p. 41

2016

  • National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 233, repro.

2017

  • American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2017: 142, no. 108.

2023

  • "Reflection." Museum 102, no. 4 (July-August 2023): 48, color repro.

Inscriptions

center right in white watercolor: Homer '77

Wikidata ID

Q64640141

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