Winslow Homer
Young Man Reading
American, 1872
Scroll
Winslow Homer
Young Man Reading
American, 1872
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Framed: 22 5/8 x 24 1/2 x 3 1/4 in. (57.5 x 62.2 x 8.3 cm) Unframed: 14 x 16 in. (35.6 x 40.6 cm) Sight: 13 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. (34.3 x 39.4 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony W. Deering, Baltimore
Object Number
2005.142
If Homer’s Cellist is about the power of music, his Young Man Reading is about the written word. Homer produced several country school room scenes in the 1870s. The Noon Recess, a wood engraving published by Harper’s Weekly in 1873, depicted a little boy kept inside by his teacher to practice reading. A map and a blackboard hang on the wall behind them. Painted at about the same time, Young Man Reading is also set in a rural school room. Here, the boy is older, the teacher is absent, and the rectangular passage on the wall could be either a blackboard or a large map. Characteristically, Homer carries ambiguity further. Reading meant knowledge, but this lad is precariously posed, tilted back in his stick chair. His prospects in post-Civil War America are left open ended.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by partial and promised gift, 2005, completed, 2012; Mr. and Mrs. Anthony W. Deering, Baltimore by purchase, 2004; Christie's, New York, 2004; private collection, Dallas, Texas; Mr. Francis Minot Weld, New York, 1944; Babcock Galleries, New York; The Downtown Gallery, New York, 1941; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by gift, 1918; Mrs. Charles S. Homer, 1917; Charles S. Homer, Jr., New York (brother of the artist)
AMW Reinstallation 2014
Lloyd Goodrich & Edith Havens Goodrich, "Whitney Museum of American Art Record of Works by Winslow Homer, NY: Spaneirman Gallery, 2005, no. 435, ill.
"Important American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture," Christie's, New York, May 18, 2004, sale no. 1377, lot no. 41, ill.
Jay Hancock, 'Fractional art donations prove charity starts at home,' "The Baltimore Sun," Sunday, 2/4/2007, 6C, ill.
Inscribed: FACE: LL, "W.H."
