The Cotton Pickers.

In the mid-1870s, Winslow Homer returned to Petersburg, Virginia, where he had sketched for <em>Harper’s Weekly</em> during the Civil War. <em>The Cotton Pickers</em> is one of a series of paintings by Homer of rural African Americans in the South. The painting was first exhibited at New York’s Century Association in 1877, received positive reviews, and sold immediately. The nineteenth century art critic George W. Sheldon applauded Homer’s paintings of African Americans for their “total freedom from conventionalism and mannerism, in their strong look of life and in their sensitive feeling for character.”

In the mid-1870s, Winslow Homer returned to Petersburg, Virginia, where he had sketched for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War. The Cotton Pickers is one of a series of paintings by Homer of rural African Americans in the South. The painting was first exhibited at New York’s Century Association in 1877, received positive reviews, and sold immediately. The nineteenth century art critic George W. Sheldon applauded Homer’s paintings of African Americans for their “total freedom from conventionalism and mannerism, in their strong look of life and in their sensitive feeling for character.”

Creator: Winslow Homer

Source: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Date: 1876