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. (National Academy of Design, 1876) cat. 285.
“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.
Exposition Universelle Internationale, Catalogue Officiel. Tome I: Groupe I, Oeuvres d’Art, 3rd ed. (Imprimerie Nationale, 1878), 204, cat. 69, as Epis de blés.
S. N. Carter, “Paintings at the Centennial Exhibition,” The Art Journal 2 (1876): 284, as Husking Bee, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20568958.
S. N. Carter, “The Academy Exhibition,” The Art Journal 4 (1878): 157–59, as Corn Husking, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20569225.
Lucy H. Hooper, “The Pictures at the Paris Exhibition. IV. The American Pictures,” The Art Journal 4 (1878): 348–350, as Corn Husking, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20569288.
“American Genre Painters: Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer and the Rest,” New York Times (Aug. 25, 1878): 10, as Corn Husking.
S.G.W. Benjamin, “A Representative American,” The Magazine of Art 5 (Nov., 1882): 485–490.
Illustrated Catalogue of the Art Hall of the Inter-State Industrial Exposition of Chicago, exh. cat. (Rand, McNally, & Co., 1882), 78, cat. 612, as Corn Husking
Clarence Cook, Art and Artists of Our Time, vol. 3 (Selmar Hess, 1888), 263.
“Washington Art Notes,” American Art News 4, no. 26 (Apr. 7, 1906): [4], as The Husking Bee, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25590186.
“Weekly Calendar,” The Collector and Art Critic 4, no. 6 (Apr., 1906): n.p., as The Husking Bee, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25435680.
Sadakichi Hartman, “Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter,” The International Studio 34 (Apr., 1908): 111, as Corn Huskers.
“The Loan Exhibitions,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 4, no. 1 (July, 1910): 6, as Corn Husking, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4116816.
John Denison Champlin, Jr. and Charles C. Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, vol. 2 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), 351, as .
“Accessions and Loans,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 16, no. 3 (May, 1922): 47, as Corn Husking, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4116423.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), 111, 159 (ill.).
Fogg Art Museum, Art in New England: New England Genre, exh. cat. (Harvard University Press, 1939), cat. 17 (ill.).
John I. H. Baur, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906 exh. cat. (Brooklyn Museum, 1940), 3, 23, 50, 62, cat. 55, pl. 32 (ill.), as Corn Husking Bee, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89050667617.
Everett U. Crosby, Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes (Nantucket, 1944), 12, C.1, as Corn Husking Bee.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, “American Painting at the Art Institute,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 45, no. 3 (Sept. 15, 1951): 41–50, as Corn Husking, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4112599.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), 248, as Cornhusking Bee.
Patricia Hills, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Whitney Museum of Art, 1972), 89, cat. 79 (ill.).
Patricia Hills, The Painters’ America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810–1910, exh. cat. (Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974), 79, fig. 97 (ill.), as .
Patricia Hills, The Genre Painting of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes (New York: Garland Press, 1977).
Ross E. Taggart, Kaleidoscope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, exh. cat. (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, 1977), cat. 77 (ill.).
Sarah Burns, Pastoral Inventions: Rural Life in Nineteenth-Century American Art and Culture (Temple University Press, 1989).
Marc Simpson, Sally Mills, and Patricia Hills, Eastman Johnson, The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket: 25th Anniversary Exhibition (Timken Art Gallery, 1990).
Sarah Burns, “Revitalizing the ‘Painted-Out’ North: Winslow Homer, Manly Health, and New England Regionalism in Turn-of-the-Century America,” American Art 9, no. 2 (Summer, 1995): 23, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3109183.
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), 227–29, cat. 106 (ill.).
Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, exh. cat. (Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1999), 85, 262–64, , cat. 44 (ill.).
Lacey Baradel, “Geographic Mobility and Domesticity in Eastman Johnson’s The Tramp,” American Art 28, no. 2 (Summer, 2014): 30–40, fig. 9 (ill.), 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.
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 Blés.
Chicago, Inter–State Industrial Exposition of Chicago, Sept. 1–Oct. 21, 1882, cat. 612, as Corn Husking.
Union League Club of New York, Loan Collection, Nov. 14–16, 1889, cat. 19, as Corn Husking.
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, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].
Cambridge, MA, William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Art in New England: New England Genre, May 15–Sept. 1, 1939, cat. 17.
NY, Brooklyn Museum, An American Genre Painter, Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, Jan. 18–Feb 26, 1940, cat. 55, as Corn Husking Bee.
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.
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Romantic America Oct. 9–Nov. 28, 1948.
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, Kaleidoscope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Dec. 2, 1977–Jan. 22, 1978, cat. 77.
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, cat. 44; San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, 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 (1849–1918; born Bertha Honoré, also Mrs. Potter Palmer), 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.

Baur 55

Hills 26.3.3

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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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