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The Old Stagecoach

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The Old Stagecoach
ArtistEastman Johnson
Year1871
MediumOil on canvas
MovementRealism
Dimensions92 cm × 153 cm (36 in × 60 in)
LocationMilwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Websitehttp://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=19229

The Old Stagecoach is an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1871 by American painter Eastman Johnson.[1] Occasionally written as The Old Stage Coach or The Old Stage-Coach, the painting is considered one of Johnson's finest and best-known works, second only to his Antebellum masterpiece Negro Life at the South (also known as Old Kentucky Home).[2]

Description

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Jennifer Greenhill described the canvas in her book Playing It Straight:

In it, a group of rural children collaborates to make a dilapidated stagecoach burst into action. Some serve as passengers, others as horses, still others as guides to the imaginary landscapes of their minds.[3]

Johnson painted the canvas at his studio in Nantucket, Massachusetts.[3] It has been described as his most genial work.[4]

Display

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The Old Stagecoach is in the permanent collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. In the spring of 2017 the museum built an exhibition around the painting entitled "Eastman Johnson and a Nation Divided."[5][6]

References

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  1. ^ Wierich Havlice, Jochen (2012). Grand Themes: Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, and American History Painting. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press. p. xiii. ISBN 9780271050324.
  2. ^ Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works a Handbook Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches by Clara Erskine Clement and Laurence Hutton, Volume 2. Pennsylvania: Trübner. 1879. p. 11-12.
  3. ^ a b Greenhill, Jennifer A. (2012). Playing It Straight: Art and Humor in the Gilded Age. Berkeley: Univ of California Press. p. 54. ISBN 9780520272453.
  4. ^ Burns, Sarah. (2009). American Art to 1900: A Documentary History. Berkeley: Univ of California Press. p. 570-571. ISBN 9780520272453.
  5. ^ "Art Comes to Life for Groups at the Milwaukee Art Museum". Leisure Group Travel. 13 January 2017. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  6. ^ Sarah Hauer (10 February 2017). "'The Old Stagecoach' centerpiece of new Milwaukee Art Museum exhibit". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 1 July 2019.