Near Andersonville
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.In this quietly powerful painting, Homer explores the possibility of personal agency after the war. While the title refers to the site of a notorious Confederate prison in Georgia, the painting focuses on a Black woman emerging from a darkened interior, standing on a threshold and contemplating an uncertain future. In the distance at far left, Confederates carrying their battle flag march alongside captured Union soldiers. Homer’s only Civil War picture to feature a woman of color, Near Andersonville offers a critical foil to the images centering White male soldiers that define his early production. The theme of the effects of the military outcome on formerly enslaved people is further explored in the artist’s better-known Reconstruction-era paintings.
Artwork Details
- Title: Near Andersonville
- Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
- Date: 1865–1866
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 23 × 18 in. (58.4 × 45.7 cm)
Framed: 4 3/4 × 34 3/4 × 29 3/4 in. (12.1 × 88.3 × 75.6 cm) - Credit Line: The Newark Museum of Art, N.J., Gift of Mrs. Hannah Corbin Carter, Horace K. Corbin, Jr., Robert S. Corbin, William D. Corbin and Mrs. Clementine Corbin Day in memory of their parents Hannah Stockton Corbin and Horace Kellogg Corbin, 1966 (66.354)
- Rights and Reproduction: Photo by Richard Goodbody
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing