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Artwork

Clown Reading 1933

Paul Sample (1896-1974)

Oil on canvas

30" x 25"

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Exhibitions & Bibliography

Close up detail of Clown Reading by Paul Sample.

–Currier Gallery of Art, NH “Paul Sample Retrospective Exhibition”, 1948, catalogue page 11, artwork #10

–Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, “Paul Sample: Ivy League Regionalist”, 1984, catalog page 24, artwork #15

–Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College “Paul Sample - Painter of the American Scene”, 1988, catalog page 53

–Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Harford Connecticut; John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota Florida; & Austin Museum of Art, Texas "Images from the World Between – The Circus in 20th Century American Art", 2001-2002, catalog fig 64, page 64.

"The [painting], which at first glance seems like a clear-cut portrait of a clown as a working man on a break, taking a moment to relax with a good book, is deceptive. By juxtaposing the clown's made-up face (and those of the clowns in the background) with the face of the ventriloquist's dummy in the valise next to him, the artist creates a slightly sinister air. Is the clown a dummy or an individual with literary tastes? Sample leaves the question open."

–Donna Gustafson, Images from the World Between – The Circus in 20th Century American Art. 

Book

Circus in 20th Century Art

The circus in art is both the documentation of a succession of factual occurrences in time and space and an imagined place that can serve to illustrate ideas. Often a potent metaphor for the forces in American life and also a reflection of American life, at once darker and more light-filled than reality.

–Donna Gustafson

Read Excerpt from Images of the World Between
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