Passing Song

Object Details

Artist: Albert Pinkham Ryder, born New Bedford, MA 1847-died New York City 1917

Luce Center Label: In the mid-1890s, Albert Pinkham Ryder was infatuated with a voice he heard in his apartment building. He found the woman who was singing and immediately asked her to marry him. His friends intervened, saying that the woman was unsuitable, but Ryder immortalized the event by painting images of beautiful women bewitching men with their songs. In Passing Song the sailor wants to approach the woman but is unable to turn his rudderless boat as it drifts away with the current. This helpless figure probably symbolizes the artist, who felt passionately about women and fell in love easily, but never married. (Broun, Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1989)
Luce Object Quote: "By a deep flowing riverThere's a maiden pale,And her ruby lips quiverA song on the gale,A wild note of longingEntranced to hear,A wild song of longingFalls sad on the ears."Albert Pinkham Ryder, quoted in Broun, Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1989

before 1902

See more items in: Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
Department: Painting and Sculpture
On View: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, 3rd Floor, 6B; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, 3rd Floor

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Topic: Figure female; Waterscape\boat; Landscape\water; Landscape\coast; Performing arts\music\voice; Literature\Ryder\Passing Song

GUID (Link to Original Record): http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk77132b3b9-02f7-46b4-993e-96a9d302afd1