Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Brooklyn Museum
Not at Home pictured in Johnson's studio (center of photograph)
Photo: Reproduced in William Walton, "Eastman Johnson, Painter," Scribner's Magazine, September 1906
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25.1 Women Indoors
Johnson’s wife, Elizabeth, no doubt turned his attention to representations of women alone—either in interiors or outside. Such women are often lost in thought and suggest sentient beings with an inner life. In my interviews with descendants of Johnson’s siblings, she is presented as an independent woman. Johnson painted her portrait in which she assumes the posture of a woman who thinks on her own (also see theme 31.3). —PH
Hills no. 25.1.10
Baur no. 126
Not at Home
Alternate titles: likely Interior; likely Interior of the Artist's House; Not at Home (An Interior of the Artist's House)
c.1872–75
Oil on laminated paperboard
26 7/16 x 22 5/16 in. (67.2 x 56.7 cm)
Signed verso in cursive: E. Johnson
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Description/Remarks
MacGibeny, 2021: This painting is shown hanging on the wall, to the right of the mantel, in a photograph of Johnson's studio in the article "Eastman Johnson, Painter" by William Walton, published in Scribner's Magazine, September 1906.
Brooklyn Museum website, accessed February 8, 2021: "The painting’s title may seem curious, especially since there is clearly someone in this comfortably furnished domestic interior. In the past, however, the phrase “not at home” indicated that the occupants of the house were not available to receive visitors.
"This painting held a particularly personal meaning for Eastman Johnson; it is his wife, Elizabeth, whom we see climbing the stairs leading to more private areas of their residence on Manhattan’s West Fifty-fifth Street."
Exhibitions
Century Association, New York, January 8, 1876, no. 22, [likely, as Interior].
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, [likely, as Interior of the Artist's House].
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, January 18, 1939–February 26, 1940. (Exhibition catalogue: Baur 1940), no. 126, b/w illus., Pl. V, as Not at Home.
American Federation of Arts, New York, Romantic Realism in 19th Century American Painting (circulating exhibition), November 1, 1949–November 30, 1950.
American Federation of Arts, New York, American Paintings in Western Germany, 1953.
Whitney Museum of American Art, American Painting in the 19th Century, April 22–May 23, 1954.
Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York, The Art of Living, July 19–August 16, 1959.
New York World's Fair, New York State Pavilion, Flushing, New York, Art in New York State: The River, Places, and People, April 1–October 1964, no. 44.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Art of the United States, 1670-1966, September 28–November 27, 1966. (Exhibition catalogue: Goodrich 1966), no. 152, as Not at Home, Lent by the Brooklyn Museum.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 73, color illus., p. 63, as Not at Home, did not travel. Traveled to: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, June 7–July 22, 1972; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, August 15–September 30, 1972; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, October 20–December 3, 1972.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 37, color illus., p. 73, as Not at Home. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
References
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), pp. 40, 65, no. 126, as Not at Home.
Larkin, Oliver. Art and Life in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960, pp. 272–73, illus., as Not at Home.
Ames, Kenneth. "Eastman Johnson: The Failure of a Successful Artist." Art Journal 29, no. 2 (Winter 1969/1970), pp. 174–83, illus.
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 63, no. 73, illus., as Not at Home.
American Paintings: A complete Illustrated Listing of Works in the Museum's Collection. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 1979, p. 71.
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. 73, no. 37, as Not at Home.
Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In Eastman Johnson: Painting America, by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue, pp. 262, 266.
Weinberg, H. Barbara, and Carrie Rebora Barratt, eds. American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 93–94, illus.
Cooper, Anderson and Katherine Howe. Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty. New York: Harper, 2021, p. 100: “Society hostesses were expected to maintain hours when they would be ‘at home.’ Which meant they were prepared to receive visitors, not just physically in their houses. (An Eastman Johnson Painting from this period entitled ‘Not at Home,’ which shows a fashionably dressed bourgeois woman in a dimly lit Gilded Age New York interior mounting a staircase, suggesting that she is avoiding receiving whoever is at the door, now hangs in the Brooklyn Museum.). Calling was as much about reaffirming networks of power and acquaintanceship as it was about actually passing pleasurable time in one another’s company—perhaps more so," as Not at Home.
Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): Often, most recently 2019-09-17
Examination notes: Painting at U.L. is a portrait. White dress—black bands. Light highlights furniture and carriage and chandelier. Lime-yellow walls—turquoise band—green molding. Gold frames. Turquoise chair. Red floor—greenish carpet. Red carpet in foreground. Great sense of an invading light.
2019-10-28 comment: Painting hanging on right wall in far room is Johnson’s copy after Breton.
2019-10-28 comment: Painting hanging on right wall in far room is Johnson’s copy after Breton.
Keywords
- Subject matter:
Record last updated March 22, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Not at Home, c.1872–75 (Hills no. 25.1.10)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=323 (accessed on October 3, 2024).