Pull for the Shore
John George BROWN
(British, 1831-1913 (active USA))
Pull for the Shore
Dateca. 1882-1891
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 24 × 39 3/4 in. (61 × 101 cm)
frame: 32 3/4 × 48 3/4 × 3 1/2 in. (83.2 × 123.8 × 8.9 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gifts from the Estate of Mrs. Stanley McCormick, Norman Hirschl and the American Federation of Arts to the Preston Morton Collection by exchange
Object number1971.18
Subject(s)
- boat
- men
- ocean
Collection
- 19th century American
- American
Sub-Collection(s)
- Marine
- British
- English
- American
On View
Not on viewCollections
Label TextPictured here are a group of fishermen, likely modeled on the workers that Brown studied first hand on Grand Manan Island off the coast of Maine in 1877 and 1878. The composition is a slight variant of a larger version (1878, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk), which was exhibited at the National Academy of Design, and was likely a response to a painting of a similar subject by Winslow Homer called Breezing Up (1876, National Gallery of Art). Though Brown accrued wealth through the popularity of his more sentimental pictures of the newspaper boys and boot polishers he saw everyday while living in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York, he clearly had the ambition to create Realist compositions like this one, meant to rival Winslow Homer in their credible portrayal of heroic, American male types. As such, these real-life fishermen were intended to be seen as “manful, daring, and independent as Vikings,” as commented by one critic in 1882.
George Peter Alexander HEALY
1841