Dem Was Good Ole Times
Artist
Thomas Hovenden
(American, 1840-1895)
CultureAmerican
Date1882
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 16 1/8 x 12 1/8 in. (41 x 30.8 cm)
Overall, Frame: 29 1/8 x 25 1/4 x 5 in. (74 x 64.1 x 12.7 cm)
Overall, Frame: 29 1/8 x 25 1/4 x 5 in. (74 x 64.1 x 12.7 cm)
InscribedSigned and dated at lower right: ;
THovenden;
1882
Credit LineMuseum purchase with Funds Provided by The Chrysler Museum Landmark Communication Art Trust; An Anonymous Donor; Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer; Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Barry III; and The Museum's Accession Fund.
Object number92.49.1
Not on view
DescriptionThis oil on canvas painting is a vertical figure piece which depicts an elderly African-American man, named Samuel Jones; he is seated on a bench looking directly at the viewer. Wearing a suit of many patches, he holds a clay pipe in his left hand, while in the right foreground his five-string banjo rests on a late 18th-century faux-bamboo Windsor chair, which was an integral part of Hovenden's studio furniture.Label TextThomas Hovenden American, 1840–1895 Dem Was Good Ole Times, 1882 Oil on canvas This elderly black man has lived through emancipation and notable gains in civil rights. Thomas Hovenden’s Dem Was Good Ole Times suggests that his subject feels nostalgia for the past despite the painful memories of slavery. Hovenden’s neighbor Samuel Jones served as his model for this sympathetic image of mirth and music. The white painter Hovenden frequently used art to promote equality, and his message remained important in the 1880s as the federal government began to endorse racial segregation and new forms of discrimination. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Chrysler Museum Landmark Communications Art Trust, an anonymous donor, Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer, Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Barry III., and the Museum’s accession fund 92.49.1 ProvenancePrivate Collection, Philadelphia, Pa., in 1883; Private Collection, Paris, France, until 1992. Exhibition History"Interstate Industrial Exhibition," Chicago, Ill., Fall 1882. "26th Exhibition," Boston Art Club, Mass., 1882. (Exh. cat. no. 77) Baltimore, 1883. "Thomas Hovenden: Intimate Insights," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., January 15 - March 13, 1994; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Tex., May 7 - August 14, 1994. "Thomas Hovenden [1840-1895]: American Painter of Hearth and Homeland," Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pa., September 14 - December 1, 1995. "Treasures for the Community: The Chrysler Collects, 1989-1996," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 25, 1996 - February 16, 1997. "The Birth of the Banjo," Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, N.Y., November 9, 2003 - February 1, 2004. "Picturing the Banjo," Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., December 10, 2005 - March 5, 2006; Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, PA, March 30 - June 25, 2006; Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA, July 26 - October 21, 2006. "Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008. "American Treasures at the Willoughby-Baylor House," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, January 2 - December 1, 2013. Published ReferencesSamuel Isham, _History of American Painting_ (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1905), 501-502. _Interstate Industrial Exhibition_ (Chicago, 1882), 87. Baltimore _Sun_ (May 16, 1883). Eleanor H. Gustafson, "Museum Accessions," _The Magazine Antiques_ 144, No. 5 (November 1993): 612. "La Chronique des Arts," _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, no. 1502 (March 1994): 64, no. 288. Teresa Annas, "Art and music merge for Chrysler Exhibit," Norfolk, Va., _The Virginian-Pilot and Ledger Star_ (January 27, 1994): B5. H. Nichols b. Clark, "Thomas Hovenden, _Dem Was Good Ole Times_," _American Art Review_ 5 (Winter 1994), 98. Anne Gregory Terhune, Sylvia Yount, and Naurice Frank Woods, Jr., _Thomas Hovenden [1840-1895]: American Painter of Hearth and Homeland_, exh. cat., Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pa., 1995, 69, 71, 87, no. 49. Robert Shaw, Peter Szego, and George Wunderlich, _The Birth of the Banjo_, exh. cat., Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, N.Y., 2003, 51, 53. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 110-111, no. 67. Leo G. Mazow, _Picturing the Banjo_, exh. cat., Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, Pa., 2005, 62, 87-89, fig. 78. Anne Gregory Terhune with Patricia Smith Scanlan, forward by Elizabeth Johns, _Thomas Hovenden: His Life and Art_, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006): 108-111. Lauren Palmor,_American Beauty: The Osher Collection of American Art_,(San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2024) p.107.
ca. 1907
