Art Institute of Chicago

Bar-room Scene

William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868)

Date

1835

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

Long Island

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

William Sidney Mount specialized in scenes of everyday life known as genre paintings. He was one of the earliest American artists to do so, and his compositions, including Bar-room Scene , are rich in narrative and humor and engage with the complex cultural, political, and racial circumstances that defined antebellum society. Here Mount portrayed a boisterous group of patrons in a New York public tavern. The seated men encourage the drunken dance of the central figure, whose tattered clothes and inebriated state suggest a less fortunate position. The figure in the back corner, likely a free Black man, also frequents the tavern but does not participate fully or equally in this 1830s community.

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