Weaning the Calf
Artist
Winslow Homer
American, 1836–1910
Date1875
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensionsheight and width: 24 1/8 x 38 1/4 in. (61.3 x 97.2 cm)
height, width, and depth (frame): 36 x 49 3/4 x 4 1/4 in. (91.4 x 126.4 x 10.8 cm)
height, width, and depth (frame): 36 x 49 3/4 x 4 1/4 in. (91.4 x 126.4 x 10.8 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LinePurchased with funds from the State of North Carolina
Object number52.9.16
On View
On view[1] “Collections of John H. Sherwood and Benjamin Hart,” as Weaning the Calf.
[2] Levy Galleries inventory no. 1807A.
Published References"Fine Arts," The Evening Post (New York) (January 5, 1876), 1, discussed.
"The Century Club," The Evening Post (New York) (January 10, 1876), 4,noted (as Taking Away the Calf).
"Studio Notes," The World (New York), January 18, 1876, 5.
"Fine Arts. The Sherwood-Hart Sale-First Evening," New York Herald, December 18, 1879.
"The Hart-Sherwood Collection," Art Amateur 2 (January 1880), 30-31.
Theodore Bolton, "The Art of Winslow Homer: An Estimate in 1932," Fine Arts 18 (February 1932), 23-28, 52-55; listed in "A Catalogue of Winslow Homer's Paintings in Oil," 53 (as in collection of Maurice Whitney, Albany).
Edward Alden Jewell, “Noted Americans in Art Exhibition (Macbeth Gallery exhibition review),” New York Times (March 6, 1935), mentioned 17.
Winslow Homer: Centenary Exhibition (exhibition catalogue) (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1936), no. 11.
“Biggest Display of Homer’s Art Is Opened at WhitneyMuseum,” New York Herald Tribune (December 15, 1936), noted.
Alice Graeme, “Whitney Museum Exhibit Fitting Tribute to Homer,” Washington Post (December 27, 1936), noted F5.
Guy Pene Du Bois, “Two Exhibitions of Winslow Homer,” Magazine of Art 30, no. 1 (January 1937), noted 51.
American Paintings from the Collection of Stephen C. Clarke (Andover, MA: Phillips Academy, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1940), illus. (b-w) 5.
Winslow Homer (exhibition catalogue) (Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1944), no. 11.
Edward Alden Jewell, “54 Homer Paintings Placed on Display,” New York Times (October 3, 1944), noted 16.
Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer (New York: Macmillan Co. for the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1945), 32, 72.
Edward Alden Jewell, “Gallery Displays Homer Paintings,” New York Times (February 19, 1947), noted 23.
Edward Alden Jewell, “Melange of Events,” New York Times (February 23, 1947), noted X7.
William R. Valentiner, "The Raleigh Museum's First 220 Paintings: Notes on the Collection," Art News 55 (April 1956), 46-55, 91-92, mentioned 54, illus. (color) 103.
A Loan Exhibition of Winslow Homer for the Benefit of the New York Botanical Gardens (exhibition catalogue) (New York: Wildenstein and Co., 1947), no. 18.
W. R. Valentiner, Catalogue of Paintings: Including Three Sets of Tapestries (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1956), no. 19, illus. (b-w).
W. Aubrey Cartwright, Guide to Art Museums in the United States: East Coast-Washington, D.C. to Miami (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1958), 152, illus. (b-w).
Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer, Great American Artists Series (New York: George Braziller, 1959), illus. (b-w) fig. 21.
Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition (exhibition catalogue) (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), no. 32, illus. (color).
Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, Winslow Homer, American Artist: His World and His Work (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1961), illus. (color) 55.
American Paintings to 1900: Catalogue of Paintings, Vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1966), no. 31, illus. (b-w).
Charles W. Stanford, Masterpieces in the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1966), no. 38, illus. (color).
Charles W. Stanford, Jr., Selections from British and American Paintings and Sculpture (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1967), no. 29, illus. (color).
75 Masterworks: An Exhibition of Paintings in Honor of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Portland Art Association, 1892-1967 (exhibition catalogue) (Portland, OR: Portland Art Association, ca. 1967), no. 72, illus. (b-w).
Nina Kasanof, "American Landscapes of the 19th Century in the NCMA," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 8, no. 4 (June 1969), 2-15, discussed 9-10, illus. (b-w) fig.11.
Exhibition Number One from the Permanent Collection (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1970), 114, illus. (color) 115.
John Wilmerding, Winslow Homer (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), discussed 90-91, illus. (b-w) fig. 3-29.
Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer (exhibition catalogue) (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with the New York Graphic Society, Ltd., 1973), no. 34, illus. (b-w) 72.
American Paintings from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art (brochure) (Charlotte: Mint Museum of Art, 1975), no. 20, illus. (b-w).
G. Robert Carlsen, et al, Focus: Themes in Literature, 2nd. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1975), 562, illus. (color).
Gordon Hendricks, The Life and Work of Winslow Homer (New York: Abrams, 1979), discussed 104, 115, listed and illus. (b-w) no. CL546.
Mary Ann Calo, "Winslow Homer's Visits to Virginia During Reconstruction," The American Art Journal 12 (Winter 1980), 4-27, discussed 10, 18-19, illus. (b-w) fig. 9.
Phil Patton, "North Carolina's museum with a 'checkered history,'" Art News 81 (October 1982), 84-88, illus. (color) 87
Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (color) 22.
Karen Debnam, “Artist Winslow Homer,” The Mini Page (children’s insert in The Washington Post, May 18, 1986), illustrated 1.
Peter H. Wood and Karen C.C. Dalton, Winslow Homer's Images of Blacks: the Civil War and Reconstruction Years (exhibition catalogue) (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988), no. 23, discussed 70-72, illus. (color) fig. 36.
Christopher Reed, “The Artist and the Other: The Work of Winslow Homer,” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (Spring 1989), noted 73.
Stacy Gibbons Moore, "Established and Well Cultivated: Afro-American Foodways in Early Virginia," Virginia Cavalcade 39 (Autumn 1989), illus. (color) 77.
Kate F. Jennings, Winslow Homer (New York: Crescent Books, 1990), illus. (color) 41.
Lee Mountain, et al, Jamestown Heritage Readers, Book F (Providence: Jamestown Publishers, 1991), illus; (color) 123.
Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (color) 235.
Linda J. Docherty, "A Problem of Perspective: Winslow Homer, John H. Sherwood, and Weaning the Calf," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 16 (1993), 32-46, illus. (color) fig. 1.
Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. and Franklin Kelly, Winslow Homer (exhibition catalogue) (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1995), no. 48, illus. (color).
Karen Debnam, “Winslow Homer,” The Mini Page (children’s insert in The Washington Post, January 21, 1996), illustrated 1.
Lucretia Hoover Giese, “Winslow Homer” (exhibition review), Archives of American Art Journal 36, no. 1 (1996), noted 18.
Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., entry on Winslow Homer's The Dinner Horn, in Franklin Kelly, et al., American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part 1 (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1996), 301-04, illus. (b-w) fig. 4.
James Applewhite, "On Winslow Homer's Weaning the Calf," in The Store of Joys, Huston Paschal, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1997), 56-58, illus. (color) 56; reprinted in Southern Cultures 3 (1997), 32-33, illus. (b-w) 32 (also color).
Kenneth Haltman, "Antipastoralism in Early Winslow Homer," Art Bulletin 80, no. 1 (March 1998), 93-112, illus. (color) 93, (b-w) 98.
Maureen Meister, "The Selling of Winslow Homer," Visual Resources 13 (1997), 134-35, illus. (b-w) 134.
John W. Coffey, entry for Weaning the Calf, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 204, illus. (color).
American Paintings from a Private Collection (auction catalogue) (New York: Sotheby's, Wednesday, May 24, 2000), 18, 21, illus. (color) 21.
Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Elizabeth Milroy, Harold Spencer, and Hildegard Cummings, A Connecticut Place: Weir Farm, An American Painter's Rural Retreat (exhibition catalogue) (Wilton, CN: The Weir Farm Trust, 2000), discussed 53, illus. (b-w) 53.
Paul Staiti, “Winslow Homer and the Drama of Thermodynamics,” American Art 15, no. 1 (Spring 2001), mentioned 26.
Art Taylor, "Flora, Fauna and Fine Art," North Carolina Museum of Art Preview and Calendar of Events (Sept/Oct 2001), mentioned 12, illus. (b-w) 13.
Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (March/April 2003), illus. (color) 21.
"Highlights Include Kids' Favorites," Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (September/October 2003), mentioned 7.
Lloyd Goodrich and Abigail Booth Gerdts, Record of Works by Winslow Homer, Vol. II: 1867-1876 (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005), cat. no. 593, illus. (color) 489, illus. (b-w) 391.
Claire Perry, Young America: Childhood in 19th Century Art and Culture (exhibition catalogue) (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, 2006), mentioned 93, illus. (color) 94, fig. 77 (catalogue only, not in exhibition).
Gilbert T. Vincent and Sarah Lees, "A Life with Art: Stephen Carlton Clark as Collector and Philanthropist," in The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings (exhibition catalogue) (Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006), mentioned 160, illus. (color) 161, fig. 132.
John W. Coffey, entry for Weaning the Calf, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 422, illus. (color) 423.
Margarita Karasoulas, “Visual Irony and Racial Humor in Winslow Homer’s The Watermelon Boys,” in Athanor XXXIII (Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University Department of Art History, 2015), briefly discussed 74, illus. (b-w), 78, fig. 6.
Dana E. Byrd and Frank H. Goodyear III, Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photograph and the Art of Painting (exhibition catalogue) (Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2018), illus. (color) 94, pl. 26.
Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents (exhibition catalogue) (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; London: The National Gallery, 2022-2023), 148, illus. (color) 40.
James Applewhite, "On Winslow Homer's Weaning the Calf" in “You Are the River: Literature Inspired by the North Carolina Museum of Art,” edited by Helena Feder (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2021), illus (color) 160, 163 (detail).
Tom Wolf, The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi (Washington: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2015), illus.Exhibition HistoryNew York, NY, The Century Association, members exhibition, January 8, 1876, no. 5 (as Taking Away the Calf).
New York, NY, George A. Leavitt & Co., "The Collections of John H. Sherwood and Benj. Hart," December 6-17, 1879, no. 49 (exhibited at the National Academy of Design).
New York, NY, Macbeth Gallery, "Loan Exhibition," March 5–18, 1935 (lent by Stephen C. Clarke), no. 7.
New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, "Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition," December 15, 1936-January 15, 1937, no. 11.
Andover, MA, Phillips Academy, Addison Gallery of American Art, "American Paintings from the Collection of Stephen C. Clark," June 1940, illus. (b-w) 5.
New York, NY, Macbeth Gallery, “Exhibition of Paintings by Deceased American Masters,” February 16–March 7, 1942, no. 9 (lent anonymously).
New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, "Winslow Homer," October 3-November 2, 1944.
Worcester, MA, Worcester Art Museum, "Winslow Homer," November 16-December 17, 1944, no. 11.
New York, NY, Wildenstein & Co., "A Loan Exhibition of Winslow Homer for the Benefit of the New York Botanical Gardens," February 19-March 22, 1947, no. 18.
New York, NY, Milch Galleries, "Special Exhibition of Paintings in Honor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Diamond Jubilee," December 4-30, 1950, no. 10.
New York, NY, National Academy of Design, "The American Tradition, 1800-1900," December 3-16, 1951, no. 72 (lent by Babcock Galleries).
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, "Winslow Homer, A Retrospective Exhibition," November 23, 1958-January 4, 1959; New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 25-March 8, 1959; Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts,March 25-May 3, 1959, no. 35, illus. (Boston edition only, color).
Minneapolis, MN, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, "Four Centuries of American Art," November 27, 1963-January 19, 1964.
Winston-Salem, NC, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, "Loan of the Month," June 1966.
Portland, OR, Portland Art Museum, "75 Masterworks: An Exhibition of Paintings in Honor of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Portland Art Association, 1892-1967," December 12, 1967-January 21, 1968, no. 72, illus. (b-w).
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Exhibition Number One from the Permanent Collection," October 1970, 113, illus. (color) 114.
New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, "Winslow Homer," April 3-June 3, 1973; Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum, July 1-August 15, 1973; Chicago, IL, Art Institute of Chicago, September 8-October 21, 1973, no. 34, illus. (b-w) 72.
Columbia, SC, Columbia Museum of Art, "Winslow Homer Watercolors from the Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum," March 15-April 19, 1974; Savannah, GA, Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Inc., April 23-May 26, 1974 (Weaning the Calf lent to supplement this traveling exhibition).
Richmond, VA, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, "Masterpieces from the North Carolina Museum of Art," March 11-April 13, 1975.
Charlotte, NC, Mint Museum of Art, "American Paintings from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art," September 7-October 19, 1975, no. 20, illus. (b-w).
Fayetteville, NC, Fayetteville Museum of Art, "Inaugural Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art," May 1-30, 1978.
Houston, TX, The Menil Collection, "Winslow Homer's Images of Blacks: the Civil War and Reconstruction Years," October 21, 1988-January 8, 1989; Richmond, VA, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, February 14-April 4, 1989; Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, May 6-July 2, 1989, no. 23, illus. (color) fig. 36.
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, "Winslow Homer," October 15, 1995-January 28, 1996; Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts, February 21-May 26, 1996; New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 20-September 22, 1996, no. 48, illus. (color).
Williamstown, MA, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, "The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings from the Collections of Sterling and Stephen Clark," June 4-September 4, 2006; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 22-August 19, 2007, mentioned 160, illus. (color) 161, fig. 132.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, Highlights of the American Collection, February 15-August 2, 2009.
Winston-Salem, NC, Reynolda House of American Art, “Grant Wood and the American Farm,” September 9–December 31, 2016.
Brunswick, ME, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, “Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting,” June 22–October 28, 2018; Chadd’s Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum of Art, November 17, 2017–February 17, 2019, illus. (color) 94, pl. 26.
New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents,” April 11–July 31, 2022.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement
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