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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Catalogue Entry
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Photo: National Academy of Design, New York
Overall
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
⊠
09.3 Black Children and Adolescents
During the 1860s Johnson painted Black men, women, and children that bestow on them dignity, intelligence, and grace. Many in his family, including his sister Harriet May and her husband Reverend Joseph May were ardent abolitionists. To Johnson, Blacks were not subjects to be ridiculed or satirized. —PH
Hills no. 9.3.6
Baur no. 32
Negro Boy
Alternate title: The Negro Boy
c.1860–61
Oil on canvas
14 x 17 in. (35.6 x 43.2 cm)
Verso, covered by relining: Eastman Johnson
Description/Remarks
David Dearinger, ed., Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design, Vol. I, 1826–1925, p. 324: "Johnson would surely have thought in choosing this small study as his diploma work to recall the great success of his 'Negro Life at the South' in the Academy annual exhibition two years earlier. However, considering that he made his presentation at the last possible moment before his election would have been voided, it probably was a recent work. In the early 1860s Johnson was much occupied with painting domestic genre scenes, often focused on African-Americans."
Baur 1940, p. 39: "This was Johnson's 'diploma picture' painted for the National Academy of Design when [Johnson] became an Academician in 1860."
Provenance
National Academy of Design, New York, May 6, 1861 (by gift from the artist)
Exhibitions
1939 Brooklyn Museum
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. 32, as Negro Boy.1972 Whitney Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 26, b/w illus., p. 33, as Negro Boy. 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, 1972.1984 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, Southern Show, 1984.1987 California Afro-American Museum
California Afro-American Museum, Los Angeles, The Portrayal of the Black Musician in American Art, March 7–August 14, 1987, unnumbered, as Negro Boy.1999 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 72, as Negro Boy. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.2006 Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, American ABC: Childhood in 19th Century America, February 1–May 7, 2006. (Exhibition catalogue: Perry 2006), as The Negro Boy. Traveled to: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., July 4–September 17, 2006; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, November 1, 2006–January 7, 2007.References
NAD 1911
Catalogue of the Permanent Collection: National Academy of Design, 1826-1910. New York: National Academy of Design, 1911, no. 350, as Negro Boy.Baur 1940
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. 39, 61, no. 32, as Negro Boy.Devere 1940
Devere, Howard. "New York Exhibition Reviews." Magazine of Art (Washington, DC) 33, no. 1 (January 1940), p. 40.AFA 1958
The Charm of Youth: Children Painted by American Artists of the 19th Century. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1958.Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 33, no. 26, illus., as Negro Boy.NAD 1979
All Walks of Life: Paintings of the Figure from the National Academy of Design. New York: National Academy of Design, 1979, p. 56, illus.LeFalle-Collins and Simon 1987
LeFalle-Collins, Lizzetta, and Leonard Simon. The Portrayal of the Black Musician in American Art. Los Angeles: California Afro-American Museum, 1987. Exhibition catalogue, p. 39, as Negro Boy.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. 134, no. 72, as Negro Boy.Dearinger 2004
Dearinger, David Bernard, ed. Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design. Vol. I, 1826–1925. New York and Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004, p. 324, as Negro Boy.McCarthy and Thompson 2019
McCarthy, Jeremiah William, and Diana Thompson. For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019, p. 73, illus., as Negro Boy.Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): 1970-11-25; 1984-05-18; 2019-12-07
Examination notes: 1970-11-25: Picture has darkened badly. White shirt is bright—the rest is very dark. Almost monochromatic—sienna and umber colors. Black lines touch up feet, hands, lips, floor boards, etc. Much more obscure than the photograph. Eyes gaze straight ahead; lips slightly red.
1984-05-18: Very sketchy—limited palette. Paint scrubbed on; white of canvas is boy's shirt; outlining around figure. Hand elongated—out of proportion. Figure larger than usual.
2019-12-07: A young African American boy playing a flute as he sits in the doorway of a rustic log cabin. Bold white strokes give definition to his shirt. Fingers and facial features sensitively done, with outlining along edges of fingers, fingernails, and lines of his palm. His pursed lips blow into the flute. Facial features delicately done with deft highlights showing the edge of the whites of his eyes and pinpoint highlights on the irises. The right side of his face (our left) merges into the darkness of the cabin interior. The focus on his face is in contrast to the sketchy handling of the logs at the lower left side of the cabin, where brown colors are freely brushed.
He occupies a liminal space—literally, by sitting in the door jamb, and figuratively, by his association with many blacks being neither wholly free nor legally enslaved.
1984-05-18: Very sketchy—limited palette. Paint scrubbed on; white of canvas is boy's shirt; outlining around figure. Hand elongated—out of proportion. Figure larger than usual.
2019-12-07: A young African American boy playing a flute as he sits in the doorway of a rustic log cabin. Bold white strokes give definition to his shirt. Fingers and facial features sensitively done, with outlining along edges of fingers, fingernails, and lines of his palm. His pursed lips blow into the flute. Facial features delicately done with deft highlights showing the edge of the whites of his eyes and pinpoint highlights on the irises. The right side of his face (our left) merges into the darkness of the cabin interior. The focus on his face is in contrast to the sketchy handling of the logs at the lower left side of the cabin, where brown colors are freely brushed.
He occupies a liminal space—literally, by sitting in the door jamb, and figuratively, by his association with many blacks being neither wholly free nor legally enslaved.
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Record last updated May 27, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Negro Boy, c.1860–61 (Hills no. 9.3.6)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=79 (accessed on May 1, 2025).