Provenance

Trustees of John Hay Whitney Charitable Trust

Explore Selected Works

The painting depicts a coastal scene. A rocky shore in warm tones of orange and purple is closest to the viewer, with two boats and a simple structure visible near the center of the image. The horizon line is high in the composition, with a range of mountains faintly visible against the sky past the large body of water. The water is a light blue, stretching from the rocky shore to the distant mountains. The paint has been applied with small dot-like brushstrokes of reds, oranges, blues, and purples.
Henri Edmond Cross, Calanque des Antibois, 1891/1892, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.2

Calanque des Antibois

Henri Edmond Cross · 1891/1892 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.2

Two men wearing brief-like shorts, shoes, and boxing gloves curl toward each other as they grapple in the middle of a boxing ring in this horizontal painting. We look at the ring from across the heads of the crowd below and around us. The platform of the boxing ring comes about a quarter of the way up the canvas so the boxers themselves nearly brush the top edge of the composition. The boxer on our left has pale, peach skin and wears light blue shorts. He curves to his side as he dips his head and right shoulder toward us in a defensive position, arms shielding his face. To our right and in the center of the composition, the opponent has an olive-toned complextion. He wears dark shorts and is shown in mid-punch with his left leg raised to step forward. His back curves like a comma as his right arm comes forward with the punch. Bright light, like a spotlight, illuminates the men from our left so even the right sides of their bodies are lost in shadow. The crowd around us is backlit but one grinning man turns to look over his shoulder at or beyond us. The arena across the boxing ring is also plunged into deep shadow, so only the faces in the first few rows are visible before being swallowed in darkness. In fact, the top third of the canvas behind the boxers is black. The faces of the men in the crowd across from us are loosely painted, sometimes with only a few strokes to capture features. Individual features are mostly obscured but one face near the center, between the legs of the attacking boxer, is split wide in an exaggerated grin. That man wears a white tuxedo shirt and black jacket, and raises both hands, as if ready to light a cigar.
George Bellows, Club Night, 1907, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.1

Club Night

George Bellows · 1907 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.1

Trees and mountains nearly fill this composition and are painted with long, mostly parallel brushstrokes in this horizontal landscape. The trees are painted with long dashes of royal and aquamarine blue, pine and mint green to suggest leaves on coral-red trunks. The grass below is lemon-lime yellow, and a walking path is picked out with lavender-purple strokes. The mountains beyond the trees are painted with flat areas of coral, apricot orange, and cobalt blue. The sky above is pale turquoise with a few swirling, cream-colored clouds.
André Derain, Mountains at Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.4

Mountains at Collioure

André Derain · 1905 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.4

We look across river at a bridge with a city skyline beyond in this stylized, horizontal landscape, which is painted entirely with broad, visible brushstrokes in vivid, saturated colors. The river spans nearly the width of the canvas, and the riverbank is lined to our left with a row of several buildings between us and the bridge. Those buildings are outlined with royal blue and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in coral pink, mint green, tangerine orange, and pinkish tan. Letters across the top of the building farthest from us reads “BREVER.” Eight boats are tied up at the foot of the buildings. The pointed hulls of three extend into the scene from the lower left corner, painted in marigold orange and outlined in cobalt blue. Five more boats, with rounded prows and hulls and painted with lapis blue and muted aqua, line up like a row of empty shoes. The bridge runs from behind the tallest building to our left across and off the canvas, and is painted with deep lapis blue with crimson-red Xes crisscrossing the span to suggest trestles. The front faces of the pilings below are also highlighted with red. The river fills most of the bottom half of the painting. The water to our left is painted as a field of coral pink with a few, short horizontal baby and cobalt-blue strokes, suggesting reflections of the boats and a bridge piling. A narrow band of kiwi green and sky blue lines the pink field to our right. Next to it, the water is painted as short, horizontal, disconnected strokes and dots mostly in bumblebee yellow with some strokes in bubblegum pink and pale burnt orange, all against the off white of the canvas below. The final zone, to our right, is more densely painted with short dashes in indigo, turquoise, and aqua blue. Beyond the bridge, the skyline is painted in silhouette with spiky spires to our left in mint green and a mass of shorter buildings in periwinkle blue to our right. Four clouds of pale yellow billow off the bridge in front of the skyline. The sky above is painted with short and long vertical strokes of butter yellow, rose pink, pale orange, and a few areas of watermelon pink. The artist signed the work with cobalt-blue paint near the lower left corner: “a derain.”
André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.3

Charing Cross Bridge, London

André Derain · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.3

We look slightly down at a woman with pale skin and two men with ruddy complexions sitting at a table near a railing overlooking a boat-clogged waterway in this horizontal painting. Only the corner of the table is visible in the lower right corner of the canvas. The woman sits next to one man on the far side of the table, and the third person leans onto the table from our right, along the edge of the composition. The table is covered with a dark, ruby-red, floral cloth. The red-haired woman wears a dark green dress and leans back, extending her right arm along the railing. Her back is to the river below, and she gazes directly ahead, to our right. The dark-haired, bearded man sitting to her left, our right, leans toward the cleanshaven, dark-haired man sitting across from him. That second man wears a cap, and he has a prominent nose and square jaw. Sailboats, rowboats, a steamship, and vessels of every size occupy much of the waterway. Rows of buildings extend along the river to our left and right, and trees line the distant horizon at the center of the painting. The river is a tan color and the pale blue sky is hazy.
James McNeill Whistler, Wapping, 1860-1864, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.8

Wapping

James McNeill Whistler · 1860-1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.8

On the brick pavement of a sunny veranda, a young toddler leans heavily on her right arm, to our left, as she reaches for a wooden block in this horizontal painting. Much of her face is cast in deep shadow from the bright light overhead, but light brushes the tops of her cheeks and the tip of her nose. She grips a wooden block with her left hand, closer to us. Her left leg stretches to our right in a stocking striped with vivid red and white. Light glints off the shiny material of her black, round-toed slipper. She has short, golden-brown hair, and her white smock is richly embroidered in a pattern of white-one-white with alternating linked loops. Scattered before her, at arms-length, are seven other alphabet blocks lettered in gray with red and tan faces, several wooden building blocks, and a ball of red yarn. A doll in a black dress lies with limbs akimbo, face-down by a potted plant at the right edge of the canvas. A red wagon drawn by white toy horse sits near the left edge. The scene is enclosed with a deep, emerald-green hedge stretching across the background. The artist signed and dated this work as if he had inscribed two of the bricks on the patio with red paint in cursive script, in the lower right corner: “Eakins 76.”
Thomas Eakins, Baby at Play, 1876, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.5

Baby at Play

Thomas Eakins · 1876 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.5

Five monkeys rest and play amid a lush jungle landscape in this horizontal landscape painting. Painted with areas of flat color, thick vegetation fills most of the scene, with giant leaves overlapping in shades of green. At the bottom center, a large brown monkey sits upright on a rock, looking directly at us. To our left, two gray and black monkeys climb in trees, and also face us. To our right, two rust-orange monkeys swing in trees. The orange of their fur is echoed in spiky, pumpkin-orange flowers to the right. Dark red leafy plants with spiky white flowers fill the lower left corner of the painting. A cloudless, pale blue sky stretches across the top of the composition. The artist signed and dated the painting with white letters in the lower right: “Henri Rousseau 1910.”
Henri Rousseau, Tropical Forest with Monkeys, 1910, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.7

Tropical Forest with Monkeys

Henri Rousseau · 1910 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.7

A light-skinned man and woman and a collie dog are outside a white house at the edge of a pale peach field of grass in this horizontal painting. Taking up a bit more than the top right quadrant of the composition, the house is white with pale blue shadows. Near the back, left corner of the house, the door has two tall, inset frosted glass panels and a shallow roof supported with scrolling, carved corbels. The door is flanked by a bay window on the left and a single window on the right. A shadowy grove of blue-green trees grows to the left of the house with one branch reaching toward the bay window. The woman faces us and stands between the bay window and door with downcast eyes and folded arms. Her blond hair is pulled or brushed back, and she wears a snug fitting, calf-length teal-blue dress. The man sits on the doorstep so his knees are angled to our left. His near arm drapes over his left knee and his far hand reaches toward the dog, his fingers and thumb touching. He has short blond hair and a ruddy face, and he wears a white t-shirt and olive-green pants. The dog stands in the middle of the field with its body angled to our right, its pointed ears and tail pricked up as it swivels its head to look to our left. It has an auburn-brown coat with white belly, chest, and tip of the tail. There are a few areas of spearmint green in the otherwise peach-colored grass, which is tall enough to brush the belly of the dog. The artist signed the lower right, “EDWARD HOPPER.”
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Evening, 1939, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.6

Cape Cod Evening

Edward Hopper · 1939 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.6