Take Me out to the Ball Game
Tonight millions will watch Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, held in Seattle, Washington, the same city hosting our painting, Baseball at Night, by Morris Kantor. Is there a more American sport than baseball? Kantor, born in Russia, embraced the subject as the essence of idealized American life. This is not big-league baseball, but a small-town night game, yet the lights, team uniforms, professional umpire, and radio broadcasting station show how seriously this town takes the national pastime. The American flag cements the nationalistic flavor of the sport. The work's animated optimism and affirmation of enduring values acquire even greater significance since it was painted during the Depression.
If you are visiting Seattle for the All-Star Game, why not view Baseball at Night and about sixty other artworks in our traveling exhibition, Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum? They are on view at the Frye Art Museum through September 9, 2001.
Source: Elizabeth Prelinger. Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2001).
Pictured: Morris Kantor, 1896–1974, Baseball at Night, 1934, oil, 37 x 47 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor.
Tonight millions will watch Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, held in Seattle, Washington, the same city hosting our painting, Baseball at Night, by Morris Kantor. Is there a more American sport than baseball? Kantor, born in Russia, embraced the subject as the essence of idealized American life. This is not big-league baseball, but a small-town night game, yet the lights, team uniforms, professional umpire, and radio broadcasting station show how seriously this town takes the national pastime. The American flag cements the nationalistic flavor of the sport. The work's animated optimism and affirmation of enduring values acquire even greater significance since it was painted during the Depression.