Skip to main contentProvenanceThe artist
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1996
Exhibition HistoryPublished References
Eliza Draper Gardiner
(American, 1871–1955)
Boy and Goose
c. 1919
Color woodcut on cream Japanese paper
Image: 11 13/16 x 9 11/16 in. (30.0 x 24.6 cm)
Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. (34.3 x 27.3 cm)
Mat: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. (34.3 x 27.3 cm)
Mat: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Credit LineTerra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number1996.19
SignedUnsigned
InterpretationBoy and Goose exemplifies the simplified style Eliza Draper Gardiner used in representing children engaged in activities that demonstrate their innocence and charm. As in a candid snapshot photograph, the child more than fills the space enclosed by a dark border, his head cropped at the upper edge. Wearing blue striped shorts, the smiling young boy proudly clutches a large white goose that seems to struggle for release. To suggest the oblique sunlight filling the scene, Gardiner reduced the boy's face to patches of stark light and dark that nonetheless convey his soft, childish features and pleased expression; his feathery bundle casts a deep shadow over his torso, while his body in turn casts a blocky shadow on the ground. The houses in the background appear simply as gray silhouettes.
Gardiner's use of flat color shapes, silhouetting, cropping, and a high horizon line all reveal her debt to Japanese woodcut prints, which deeply influenced European and American artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As demonstrated in this work and in Pickaback (TF 1996.20), Gardiner depicted children engagingly but as generalized types, in contrast to Mary Cassatt's tender attentiveness to the individuality of her childish models' appearance and behavior, as shown for example in her print The Bath (TF 1994.4).
Gardiner's use of flat color shapes, silhouetting, cropping, and a high horizon line all reveal her debt to Japanese woodcut prints, which deeply influenced European and American artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As demonstrated in this work and in Pickaback (TF 1996.20), Gardiner depicted children engagingly but as generalized types, in contrast to Mary Cassatt's tender attentiveness to the individuality of her childish models' appearance and behavior, as shown for example in her print The Bath (TF 1994.4).
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1996
Exhibition History
Domestic Bliss: Family Life in America, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–June 22, 1997.
On Process: The American Print, Technique Examined, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 2, 2001.
Héroïque et le quotidien: les artistes américains, 1820–1920 (The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–November 30, 2001. [exh. cat.]
On Process: The American Print, Technique Examined, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 2, 2001.
Héroïque et le quotidien: les artistes américains, 1820–1920 (The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–November 30, 2001. [exh. cat.]
Falk, Peter Hastings. Eliza Draper Gardiner: Master of the Color Woodcut. (exh. cat., Newport Art Museum). Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press, 1987. No. 6.