Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket

1876

Eastman Johnson
American, 1824–1906

One of several genre paintings in Eastman Johnson’s oeuvre that takes its nostalgic theme from rural Nantucket, Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket is a timeless evocation of agrarian peace and cooperation. Stylistically, the painting fuses landscape and genre, and Johnson further imbued the scene with a Barbizon, plein-air sensibility. The autumnal palette is interspersed with bright patches of red, blue, and green that appear like sparks amidst the shimmering gold of the cornhusks. Johnson carefully included a woman discovering a red ear of corn, which, according to folk tradition, would allow her to kiss the person of her choice. This combination of indigenous subject matter and an international style was typical of American art around the time of the country’s centennial.

Status: On View, Gallery 171
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 lower left: "E. Johnson/1876"
Dimensions: 69.3 × 137 cm (27 1/4 × 54 3/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Honoré and Potter Palmer
Reference Number: 1922.444
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Eugene Benson, “Eastman Johnson,” The Galaxy VI (1868), 111.
“The National Academy of Design,” The Art Journal 2 (1876), 159.
“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 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. (Whitney Museum of American Art / Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1972).
Patricia Hills, The Painters’ America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810–1910, exh. cat. (The Whitney Museum of American Art/Praeger, 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 (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, NY, National Academy of Design, Fifty–First Annual Exhibition, Mar–?, 1876, no. 285 as Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket, lent by Eastman Johnson.
Philadelphia, PA, International Exhibition of Fine Arts, 1876, no. 249e, as The Husking Bee, lent by Eastman Johnson.
Paris, France, Exposition Universelle International, Exhibition des Oeuvres d’Art, May 1–Oct. 10, 1878, no. 69 as Epis de Ble, lent by Napoleon Sarony.
Chicago, Inter–State Industrial Exposition, Sept. 1–Oct. 21, 1882, cat. 612, lent by Napoleon Sarony.
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, no. 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, Mass., Harvard University, William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, New England Genre, May 15–Sept. 1, no. 17, ill.
Brooklyn Museum, NY, An American Genre Painter, Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, Jan. 18–Feb, 1940, no. 55, ill. pl. 32.
Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Institute, Survey of American Painting, Oct. 24–Dec. 15, 1940, no. 121.
Denver Art Museum, Chappell House Galleries, Our American Heritage, Mar. 7–Apr. 11, 1948, no. 38.
New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Painters’ America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810–1910, Sept. 20–Nov. 10, 1974, no. 97; Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Dec. 5, 1974–Jan. 19, 1975; Oakland Museum, Calif., 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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