Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1876

Eastman Johnson (American, 1824–1906)

Eastman Johnson painted this composition in 1876, 100 years after the founding of the United States. The centennial fostered a sense of nostalgia among some residents as industrialization and urban growth rapidly transformed the nation. Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket depicts a seasonal gathering on the rural Massachusetts island. Community members work together to shuck corn and ready the harvest, a traditional activity that was far removed from daily life for many in the late 19th century. Johnson employed a warm palette and loose brushwork to describe this agrarian subject, presenting an uncomplicated vision of cooperation and closeness to the land.

Status: On View, Gallery 161
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Eastman Johnson
Title: Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket
Place: Nantucket Island (Place depicted)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1876
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed recto, bottom-left, in brown paint: "E. Johnson / 1876".
Dimensions: 69.6 × 138.2 cm (27 3/8 × 54 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Honoré and Potter Palmer
Reference Number: 1922.444
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/81564/manifest.json

Eugene Benson, “Eastman Johnson,” The Galaxy VI (1868): 111.
National Academy of Design, Catalogue of the Fifty-First Annual Exhibition, exh. cat. (New York: National Academy of Design, 1876) cat. 285, as Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket.
“Paintings at the Centennial Exhibition,” The Art Journal 2 (1876): 284.
“Representative Pictures at the Academy,” Appleton’s XV, no. 269 (April 15, 1876): 508–510.
“The National Academy of Design,” The Art Journal 2 (1876): 159.
“The Pictures at the Paris Exhibition, IV: The American Pictures,” The Art Journal 4 (1878): 348–350.
S.G.W. Benjamin, “A Representative American,” The Magazine of Art V (1882): 485–490.
Carroll Beckwith, “Eastman Johnson—His Life and Work,” Scribner’s Magazine XL (1906): 254.
William Walton, “Eastman Johnson, Painter,” Scribner’s Magazine Vol. XL, no. 3 (September 1906): 263–274.
Sadakichi Hartman, “Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter,” The International Studio XXXIV (1908): 111.
Everett U. Crosby, Eastman Johnson on Nantucket: People and Scenes (Nantucket Island, MA: privately printed, 1944).
Patricia Hills, Eastman Johnson, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1972).
Patricia Hills, The Painters’ America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810–1910, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974).
Patricia Hills, The Genre Painting of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes (New York: Garland Press, 1977).
Sarah Burns, Pastoral Inventions: Rural Life in Nineteenth–Century American Art and Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).
Marc Simpson, Sally Mills, and Patricia Hills, Eastman Johnson, The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket: 25th Anniversary Exhibition (San Diego, CA: Timken Art Gallery, 1990).
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998).
Patricia Hills, “Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket, 1876 (Hills no. 26.3.3),” Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné, accessed Aug. 5, 2021, https://www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=412, (ill.).

New York, National Academy of Design, Fifty–First Annual Exhibition, Mar. 28–May 31, 1876, cat. 285 as Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket.
Philadelphia, Memorial Hall and Art Annex, Centennial International Exhibition, May 10–Nov. 10, 1876, cat. 249e, as The Husking Bee (organized by United States Centennial Commission, Philadelphia).
Paris, France, Exposition Universelle International, Exhibition des Oeuvres d’Art, May 1–Oct. 10, 1878, cat. 69 as Epis de Ble.
Chicago, Inter–State Industrial Exposition, Sept. 1–Oct. 21, 1882, cat. 612.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings Exhibited at the Opening of the New Galleries, Feb. 24–[?], 1890, cat. 245, as Corn Husking.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings from the Collection of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Aug. 1910, cat. 27, as Corn Husking.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Survey of American Painting from the Permanent Collection of the Art Institute, July 21–Oct. 9, 1932.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, Art In New England: New England Genre, May 15–Sept. 1, 1939, cat. 17, ill.
NY, Brooklyn Museum, An American Genre Painter, Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, Jan. 18–Feb 26, 1940, cat. 55, ill. pl. 32.
Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Institute, Survey of American Painting, Oct. 24–Dec. 15, 1940, cat. 121.
Denver Art Museum, Chappell House Galleries, Our American Heritage, Mar. 7–Apr. 11, 1948, cat. 38.
Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Painters’ America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810–1910, Sept. 20–Nov. 10, 1974, cat. 97; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Dec. 5, 1974–Jan. 19, 1975; CA, Oakland Museum, Feb. 10–Mar. 30, 1975.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art at The Time of the Centennial, June 19–Aug. 8, 1976, no cat.
Kansas City, MO, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kaleidescope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Dec. 2, 1977–Jan. 22, 1978, no. 77, ill.
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, New Work–New Visions, June 6–Aug. 11, 1991.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, Oct. 29, 1999–Feb. 6, 2000, San Diego Museum of Art, Feb. 25–May 21, 2000, Seattle Museum of Art, June 8–Sept. 10, 2000.

Eastman Johnson, New York, Jan-Feb. 1876 [lent to National Academy of Design 1876]. Napoleon Sarony (1821–1896), New York, by May 1878 [lent to Paris Exposition Universelle International 1878 and Chicago Inter–State Industrial Exposition 1882]. Potter (1826–1902) and Bertha Palmer (born Honoré, 1849–1918), Chicago, 1889; by descent to his wife Bertha Palmer, 1902 [lent to Art Institute of Chicago 1910]; by descent to her sons, Honoré Palmer (1874–1964) and Potter Palmer II (1875–1943), 1918; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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