Seated Worker

Former TitleSeated Man

Artist James Ensor (Belgian, 1860 - 1949)

Date1880

MediumCharcoal on paper

DimensionsUnframed: 28 1/2 × 22 1/2 inches (72.39 × 57.15 cm)
Framed: 37 1/4 × 31 × 1 1/2 inches (94.62 × 78.74 × 3.81 cm)

Credit LineGift of Dr. and Mrs. Nicholas S. Pickard in memory of Dr. M. W. Pickard

Object number58-22

SignedRecto, b.r.corner: "Ensor 1880"

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

James Ensor: The Early Work, Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago, 1959 [?], no. 7, as Seated Workman.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, no. 76, as Seated Worker.

Solitary: Alienation in Modern Life, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, July 12, 2010-January 23, 2011, as Seated Worker.

Gallery Label

James Ensor’s softly rendered charcoal drawing captures the introspective mood of a humble and silent worker. Seated, with parted legs and folded hands, the unidentified man looks down and away from the artist and from us, the viewers. Smudged and blended, he simultaneously emerges from and fades into the indeterminate surrounding space. The sketchily defined rectangles to the left and right literally box him in.

Provenance

Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago;

Nicholas Stark Pickard (c. 1911-1994), Shawnee Mission, KS;

Given by Dr. Nicholas Stark and Mrs. Eva Ann (née McCluskey, 1914-2008) Pickard to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1958.

Published References

Dennis Adrian, James Ensor: The Early Work, exh. cat. (Chicago: Allan Frumkin Gallery, [1959]), unpaginated, (repro.), as Seated Workman.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 209, (repro.), as Seated Man.

Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 231-32, (repro.), as Seated Worker.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 121, (repro.), as Seated Worker.

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