Back to the Books

Like it or not, school is just around the corner during August, National Back-to-School Month.

The lazy, hazy days of summer, shown in the photograph below, are drawing to a close! Enjoy them while they last, and look forward to the new school year!

John Rogers's sculpture depicts an idealized—and flirtatious—nineteenth-century classroom scene. Rogers himself had to work instead of going to school for much of his life; he taught himself clay modeling on the weekend and at night, after 14-hour work days as a laborer, mechanic and engineer.

He eventually studied sculpture in France and Italy, then returned to America and made his name as a artist. Rather than sculpting classical or allegorical subjects, as was the fashion at the time, Rogers concentrated on detailed scenes from everyday life. He brought sculpture into middle-class homes by casting thousands of plaster copies of his works and selling them directly to American households.

Source: "Rogers: Art for, of, the People," Washington Post 28 July 1989.

Pictured top: John Rogers, 1829–1904, The Favored Scholar, patented 1873, cast and painted plaster, 21 1/8 x 16 1/8 x 12 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Rogers and Son.

Pictured bottom: Bruce Horowitz, born 1949, Untitled, 1975, gelatin silver print on paper, 10 1/2 x 10 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts.