Two Children Dancing

“Two Children Dancing”

Oil, artist unknown

Donated by Mrs. LaVere (Ruth) Braught, 1988. The painting hung in Mrs. Braught’s grandmother’s home.

This undated painting by an unknown artist is a depiction of two joyful children caught as they skip and dance together. Such humble, everyday subjects have always found a ready audience, and they are identified as genre paintings, or images of common people engaged in ordinary life. In its subject and the animated, this painting is reminiscent of the Ash Can School of American painting, which flourished in the first decade of the 20th century. It was called the Ash Can School because it celebrated the life of the lower classes, focusing on their simple pleasures and jolly spirits. The artist here adds a sentimental touch by showing one of the girls with a missing shoe, lost perhaps as she went on her happy way, unaware that she has danced off her shoe.

The painting had been added to by an artist who added trees in the background. When the painting was restored, the trees were removed to reveal a black background that isolates the subject from their surroundings.

See student reflection video below: