The True American

Enoch Wood Perry

ca. 1874 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Perry painted this oil in preparation for a widely distributed chromolithograph that uses humor to mock the impossible ideal of national unity. The True American, also titled The Bummers (meaning a bum or vagrant), implies that the subjects of the painting are coarse, non-thinking citizens. The cropped sign above the door reads "The National Hotel." The mindless male figures, one of whom reads the newspaper "The True American," present only their backsides, with heads concealed, as does the depicted horse at left, and the dog at right. In these terms, the artist comments on the willful ignorance of the voting population in the United States during the Reconstruction era.

Artist

Enoch Wood Perry

Date

ca. 1874

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1955