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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago
11.0 Reconstruction

In 1865, the year the war ended, American artists continued to paint Blacks in settings that suggest their new found freedom. But gradually the focus on Blacks as subjects began to fade among white artists. Their responses mirrored that of the North’s white population, which then turned toward other matters (such as industrialization, Western expansion, and international trade) and left the job of Reconstruction to former slaveowners in the South. The attitude of many northerners became one of distancing from their social responsibilities; one faction argued that Blacks should learn to take care of themselves—to use their skills to earn their own living without government assistance, such as what had been provided by the Freedmen’s Bureau.

In Johnson’s painting, Fiddling His Way, a Black man is doing just that—earning his living as an itinerant fiddler [See Hills, 1999: This was the last major painting Johnson did of Blacks. There is another version, Fiddling His Way, in which an older white man is placed in the same setting and fiddling for the entertainment of the household]. —PH

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Hills no. 11.0.4
1907 Sale no. 126
Fiddling His Way
Alternate titles: possibly The Itinerant Musician; possibly The Wandering Fiddler
c.1866
Oil on artist's board
20 7/8 x 24 1/2 in. (53 x 62.2 cm)
Initialed lower left: E.J.
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021: In this version of Fiddling His Way, the fiddler is white. In the other version of the painting, owned by the Chrysler Museum of Art, the fiddler is Black.

Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 126: "In a simple New England interior an old fiddler, apparently on the tramp, is playing his violin, surrounded by the farmer’s family. Three boys rapturously watch the old man’s performance, the mother with a laughing infant stands near, the farmer himself, seated on a box, pauses between puffs at his pipe to gaze at the musician, and a grown-up daughter, broom in hand, stands in the doorway with a sentimental expression on her face. A coffee mill, a candlestick, a tin horn, bunches of herbs and various other objects, characteristic of a New England interior, hang on the wall and from the smoke-stained beams of the kitchen."
"Height, 22 inches; length, 26 inches."
[Annotation: “55.00”]
Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
[The artist's estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 26–27, 1907, no. 126 (as Fiddling His Way)]
Edward and Deborah Pollack, New York, 1988
Godel & Co., Inc., New York
Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, 1999 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, [possibly, as Fiddling His Way].
References
Tuckerman 1867
Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the American Artists: American Artist Life. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1867, p. 471 [possibly, as The Itinerant Musician].
Benjamin 1882
Benjamin, S. G. W. "A Representative American." The Magazine of Art 5 (November 1882), p. 487 [possibly, as The Wandering Fiddler].
AAA 1907b
Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 126, as Fiddling His Way.
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 13, addendum “Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Fiddling His Way].
Carbone and Hills 1999
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), p. 151, fig. 60, as Fiddling His Way.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1988-11-10
Examination notes: Black ink lines. Blue highlights on violin and grinder. Leg adjusted on baby; see photo re: changes. Turquoise skirt. Brushstrokes underneath and painted over. Note the “+” marks.
Related work
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Keywords
Record last updated April 7, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Fiddling His Way, c.1866 (Hills no. 11.0.4)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=123 (accessed on April 26, 2024).