Small Yacht Racing

Small Yacht Racing depicts a sunny day at the beach as children race their toy sailboats in the safe calm of a shallow pool cut off from the ocean at low tide. In the distance, two boys race in an echo of the two sailboats. The horizon is dotted with real yachts but the attention of almost all the many figures, both near and distant, is taken up by the contest between the toy boats or by other play. The children in the foreground turn their backs on the viewer, an unacknowledged spectator, while the few adults pictured are relegated to the distance, behind the children whose activity is the center of attention. Carr varies his clustered figures—near and far, male and female, active and passive, adult and child, wading in the water and on the sand—for naturalistic effect. But they are united as genteel participants in a day of wholesome pleasures—not competitors so much as fellows in innocent fun. The seeming reality Carr has so deliberately constructed here is a fiction of modern life in which competition is literally child's play, a mere diversion in a homogeneous, harmonious society.

Small Yacht Racing is one of Carr's many images of leisure life, often set at the beach and dominated by the innocent activities of well-dressed middle-class children. Carr found these subjects, like his many park views, near his Brooklyn, New York studio. He seems not to have painted such slice-of-life images as this one on-site, however: Small Yacht Racing, like his Pic-Nic, Prospect Park, Brooklyn (TF1992.22), is a carefully composed image that bears evidence of the artist's reliance on photographs in the somewhat frozen aspect of the almost faceless figures.

In painting such beach scenes, Carr capitalized on current artistic fashion. In the period of national prosperity known as the Gilded Age, during the 1870s and 1880s, the American middle-class pursuit of leisure sought new outlets. Beach-going emerged as an important activity that combined healthful outdoor exercise with the spiritual renewal associated with the sea's elemental vastness and relentless movement. As marine painting enjoyed a resurgence among American artists, scenes of the beach and its seasonal visitors became particularly popular. Carr married this new interest to another current subject for artistic representation: the wholesome American child, symbol of national regeneration and futurity in the wake of the Civil War. Images such as Small Yacht Racing offered comforting reassurance in an age of conflict and change.

Changes: Art in America 1881/1891, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (organizer). Venue: Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 5–November 6, 1981. [exh. cat.]

Nineteenth Century Genre Painting from The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, November 15, 1985–January 12, 1986.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

At the Water's Edge: 19th and 20th Century American Beach Scenes, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida (organizer). Venue: Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, December 9, 1989–March 18, 1990. [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 1992.

Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–June 22, 1997.

Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Ships at Sea: Sailing Through Summer, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 6–August 26, 2001.

American Classics from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–June 15, 2003.

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 15–October 31, 2007.

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2008.

Sotheby's New York, New York (April 20, 1979): lot 35. Ill. lot 35 (black & white).

Carter, Curtis L. et al. Changes: Art in America 1881/1981. (exh. cat., Marquette University). Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University, 1981. Text p. 24; ill. p. 24 (black & white).

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-54, p. 163 (color).

Lynes, Russell, William H. Gerdts, and Donald Kuspit. At the Water's Edge: 19th and 20th Century American Beach Scenes. (exh. cat., Tampa Museum of Art). Tampa, Florida: Tampa Museum of Art, 1989. Text pp. 10, 121 (checklist), 128; ill. p. 66 (black & white).

Small Yacht Racing, Samuel S. Carr. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 1992. Ill. (black & white).