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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: Courtesy of the Sheldon Museum of Art
[ 31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men ]info
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31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men

When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.

He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH

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Hills no. 31.1.14
Edwin Booth
Alternate title: possibly Portrait of the Late Edwin Booth
1884
Oil on canvas
27 x 22 in. (68.6 x 55.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower left in brown paint: E. Johnson / May 1884
Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska Art Association, Gift of Carl and Lorraine LeMar Rohman in honor of Norman A. Geske (N-680.1986)
Provenance
Edwin Booth
Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman, daughter of the sitter, possibly by 1895
Mrs. Henry C. White, daughter of Edwina Booth's son Edwin Booth Grossman
Adelson Galleries, Boston
Carl and Lorraine LeMar Rohman, by purchase
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1986 (by gift)
Exhibitions
1884b Century Association
Century Association, New York, May 3, 1884, [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
1884 Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, November 13, 1884, no. 42, [possibly, as Portrait of Edwin Booth].
1895 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, Loan Exhibition of Portraits for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital, October 13–December 7, 1895. (NAD 1895), no. 176, [possibly, as Edwin Booth, lent by Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman].
1900a Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, American Paintings, January 11–13, 1900, no. 12, [possibly, as Portrait of the Late Edwin Booth].
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
2001 Sheldon Museum
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, American Paintings from the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery: An Institutional History in Pictures, July 14–October 28, 2001.
2007 Sheldon Museum
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, Permanent Collection Installation, August 3, 2007–August 24, 2008.
2011 Sheldon Museum
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, An American Taste: The Rohman Collection, January 21–May 1, 2011.
2013 Sheldon Museum
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, Permanent Collection Installation 2013–2014: Painting from the Collection of the Sheldon Museum of Art, August 2, 2013–July 12, 2015.
References
NAD 1895
Loan Exhibition of Portraits for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital. New York: National Academy of Design, 1895. Exhibition catalogue (1895 NAD), p. 33, no. 176 [possibly, as Edwin Booth, lent by Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman].
New-York Daily Tribune 1895
"Portraits by the Score: Second Annual Loan Exhibition Opens this Afternoon. List of Some of the More Notable Ones to be Shown at the National Academy for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopedic Hospital." New-York Daily Tribune (New York), October 30, 1895, [possibly this version]: "Eastman Johnson's portrait of Edwin Booth, lent by Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman…[is] also hung in this [south] gallery."
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 11, addendum "Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
Siedell 2001
Siedell, Daniel A. "American Paintings from the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery: An Institutional History in Pictures." Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications, 2001, no. 39.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Booth, Edwin
Biography:

Edwin Booth (1833–1893). Celebrated Shakespearean actor and brother of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865).

White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.

Booth, Edwin
Keywords
Record last updated July 30, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Edwin Booth, 1884 (Hills no. 31.1.14)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=507 (accessed on April 20, 2024).