American and European Sculptures

On View: West Building, Ground Floor

130 artworks on view.

A buoy and a sailboat with three men and a woman tip at an angle on rolling aquamarine and azure-blue waves in this horizontal painting. The white wooden boat sails away from us toward the right side of the composition. Its unfurled sail is tinged with taupe and pale blue and attached to a pale wooden mast. The boat has a low cabin with round portholes on the side we can see. Two of the men are shirtless, tanned, and have their backs to us. One sits in the cockpit wearing a white hat with a short brim as he holds the tiller. The other man stands on the deck with his arms crossed. Beyond the standing man, the woman lies along the roof of the cabin, her head at about the height of the man’s chest. She is barefoot and lies on her stomach wearing long, blue pants and a watermelon-pink halter top and matching kerchief covering her hair. The third man stands to her right, his slender body angled toward us while holding onto the mast with one hand and rigging with the other. The woman and third man have noticeably pale skin. A buoy near the boat is battleship-gray with streaks of rust along its base and a copper-green bell inside. It floats just to the left of and tips toward the boat on a rising swell. The scene is lit by bright sunlight coming from the left side of the baby-blue sky with bands of feathery clouds, which takes up the top two-thirds of the composition. The artist signed the lower right, “EDWARD HOPPER.”

Ground Swell

Edward Hopper

1939

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2014.79.23

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G6

A young and older man, both with pale skin, stand next to each other in shadowy room looking at a piece of white paper held by the older man in this vertical painting. Light from the upper left falls across the men, and they take up most of the height of the composition. The paper is held by a balding, elderly man at the center of the painting. He wears a knee-length, dark brown jacket and trousers. His has a gray beard and hair, and thin black lines delineate his brows and trace the creases on his face. A younger man standing to our left has short black hair and ruddy skin. He tilts his head to gaze at the paper in the older man’s hands. The younger man wears a sage-green jacket, and his lower body is partially hidden by a wooden rack before him. The V-shaped rack supports an open, dark green portfolio folder, and the young man rests his hands on the edges of more sheets of paper there. There are two paintings hanging on the olive-green wall of the room to each side of the men, but they are loosely painted and deep in shadow, so the subjects are difficult to make out. Another aquamarine-blue folder rests against a red bed or sofa that runs along the back wall. A white, folded cloth sits on the sofa above the portfolio. The artist signed the lower left, “h. Daumier.”

Advice to a Young Artist

Honoré Daumier

1865/1868

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1941.6.1

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8

This free-standing, bronze sculpture shows a nude, muscular, young man standing with his right hand, to our left, raised to the top of his head. In this photograph, his body faces us but his head turns slightly to our left toward the raised hand. He stands on a square base with his feet together and his right knee, on our left, slightly bent. That arm is raised in front of him with the elbow bent back so his hand grasps his short hair. His eyes and full mouth are closed. His other arm is also bent at the elbow at his side so that hand is at shoulder level, his fist curled. The dark gray bronze has a green patina in some areas, especially along the ribcage, the inner thighs, and the top surface of the raised arm.

The Age of Bronze (L'Age d'Airain)

Auguste Rodin

model 1875-1876, cast 1903-1904

Bronze Accession ID 1942.5.10

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G7

Nude Warrior with a Spear

Théodore Gericault

c. 1816

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.29

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G7

An abstracted painting of a roughly oval-shaped jack-in-the-pulpit flower fills this vertical composition with cool, saturated blues, grays, and greens. A royal-blue elongated, rounded core at the bottom center is surrounded by a pale gray flame-like shape. Petals flare outward and up around the core to reach toward the sides and top of the canvas. A thin white line extends upward from the top center of the core to meet the pointed tip of the unfurling, innermost midnight-blue petal. Layers of green, reminiscent of leaves, curl outward around the top half of the flower. Pale blue in each of the four corners creates the impression of a background behind the flower, and fades to white at the top corners.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV

Georgia O'Keeffe

1930

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1987.58.3

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G6

From under an elevated train track, we look at a cluster of people hammering and working on the far side of a wooden fence, all against a silvery-blue building that fills most of the background in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted mostly in tones of hazy and saturated blues, so many of the details are indistinct. About a quarter of the way in from the right edge of the composition, a thin iron column holds up the train platform. The column nearly spans the height of the painting, and the track it supports runs across the top edge of the canvas. At the foot of the column, along the bottom edge, are two parallel tracks embedded in an area otherwise painted with short, diagonal strokes in topaz blue, olive green, and straw yellow. Just beyond the tracks, the split-rail wooden fence runs across most of the painting, though there is an opening at the left edge of the canvas. A man sits with his back to us on the railing to our right of center. He wears a dark cap, a lapis-blue shirt, and navy-blue pants. Several men work on or near a mound-shaped form, perhaps a piece of machinery, just beyond the fence, near the center of the painting. One man holds a hammer high overhead while another reaches down or strikes the mound with his feet planted wide. More people work together to our left, and a man to our right stands near a crane. The people and these areas are painted with broad strokes and touches of cobalt blue, charcoal gray, khaki brown, and a few swipes of shell pink and bright white. A puff of white smoke billows up behind the central group, before the land drops precipitously away. The chasm is painted with shimmering tones of aquamarine and cerulean blue. A sky-blue, rectangular building perches at the far edge. A few windows are outlined in royal blue to our left but the rest of the building is loosely painted with long, vertical strokes so no architectural details can be made out. Behind this structure are more city buildings, suggested with strokes of muted rust red, parchment and bright white, and cobalt blue. The ice-blue sky fills the band between the top of the buildings and the train track running overhead. The artist signed his name near the lower left corner, “BELLOWS.”

Blue Morning

George Bellows

1909

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.82

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G6

This painting shows a crowd of seated people facing the right, mostly seen from the waist up. The people are seated in rows of red seats, and closest to us is a row of four people. In the bottom left corner is a child with very short dark hair and a dark brown coat over a white collar. To the right is a woman with dark hair in an updo and adorned with what looks like a blue ribbon, and she wears a dark dress with a white ruffled collar and white cuffs. Next to her is a man with a mustache and balding head, dressed in a formal dark suit. To the far right is another woman with a light blue-gray dress or coat and short, light-colored hair with a bow or ribbon. More people are partially visible in the rows behind, but their features become increasingly soft and blurred towards the background. All of the people appear to have light skin, although some of the people on the left side and in the back appear to be in shadow, making it ambiguous.

French Theater

Honoré Daumier

c. 1856

Oil on wood Accession ID 1963.10.13

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8

An older man, a woman, and a child who holds a chair upside-down on his head stand near each other in this vertical painting, which is made with dabs and strokes of muted grays, cream white, and golden tan. The scene is lit from our right, creating deep shadows. At the center of the composition, the man has light gray skin and he stands with his body angled slightly to our left, as he looks in that direction. His eyes are shaded and he has a round nose over a mouth mostly covered in shadow. His hat has two peaks like rounded horns and a smoke-gray scarf wraps around his neck. He wears a loose, cream-white shirt under a slate-blue jacket, and dark pants. His feet are loosely painted so it is difficult to tell if he is barefoot or if his shoes are sketchily painted. A rolled-up mat held under one arm and a small wooden box held with the other hand are loosely painted and nearly lost in shadow. To our right, just behind the man, the child wears a parchment-white, full body leotard with long sleeves and pants. His pale peach-colored hands grip the ladder back of the chair, which rests upside down on his head and casts his face into shadow. To our left, the woman is mostly in shadow. A peach-colored oval suggests her face and she wears a dark garment, perhaps a shawl, over a coffee-brown, ankle-length skirt. Her weight rests on her right foot, to our left, and she holds a large drum by her other side. The background is painted indistinctly with an area of bone white in the upper left corner, which stretches nearly across the composition along the top. Most of the rest is darker sand brown with a small patch of turquoise-blue paint near the upper right corner.

Wandering Saltimbanques

Honoré Daumier

1847/1850

Oil on wood Accession ID 1963.10.14

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8

Tall, sinuous, wine-red, plum-purple, and kelly-green curving forms fill this vertical abstract painting. The forms grow up from the bottom edge and converge into an S-shaped curl near the top of the canvas. A bright white line slices down the background beyond the petal at the top, and tapers to a point about three-quarters of the way down the composition. Two elongated, burgundy-red lobes emerge from black shadow at the lower left. One sliver of green grows up the center, and another flares out to our right. The top edge of the painting is lined with celery green at the middle deepening to grass green at the upper corners.

Jack-in-Pulpit Abstraction - No. 5

Georgia O'Keeffe

1930

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1987.58.4

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G6

The sculpture depicts a horse in motion, with one front leg raised and its neck slightly arched. The figure is crafted from a material resembling bronze, with a rich brown hue that highlights the muscles and contours of the horse’s body. This small-scale sculpture is mounted on a rectangular base for stability. Its detail and textured surface convey a realistic portrayal, capturing the essence of the horse's form and movement in a compact representation.

Flayed Horse I

Théodore Gericault

c. 1820/1824

Pigmented wax Accession ID 1980.44.7

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8

Dense green vegetation surrounds a band of sun-dappled boulders that arc shallowly across this horizontal landscape painting. Just to our left of center and on our side of the boulders are several slender tree trunks. The area beyond the boulders is a haze of loosely painted moss and pine green. The tree trunks and rocks are painted in tones of sable, peanut, sand, and dark brown. The artist signed the lower left, “COROT.”

Rocks in the Forest of Fontainebleau

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

1860/1865

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.110

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G21

The sculpture is a relief featuring multiple human figures walking and engaging with each other. The figures are of various sizes and include men, women, and children. They are depicted in dynamic postures, with some figures carrying smaller figures or objects. The sculpture is crafted in a dark brown material resembling bronze. The figures suggest motion and interaction, with limited facial detail. The relief is set against a textured background of the same material, creating depth. The piece is rectangular and bordered, framing the scene within it.

Fugitives (Emigrants)

Honoré Daumier

model c. 1850/1852, cast 1893

Bronze Accession ID 1943.3.25

On View: West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8