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Sleeping Child

  • Will Barnet, Sleeping Child, 1961, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.1

Exhibition Label
Will Barnet experimented with abstraction in the 1950s but in the early 1960s returned to the figure. Painting the human form, he said, allowed him to explore the states of mind and human relationships. His foray into abstraction paid off in Sleeping Child. The linear simplicity of the feminine forms and softness of the gray-black palette speak to the universality of the bond between mother and child.


Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, 2014
Title
Sleeping Child
Artist
Will Barnet
Date
1961
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
62 x 48 in. (157.4 x 122.0 cm.)
Copyright
Credit Line

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation

Mediums
oil
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Painting
Keywords
  • State of being – other – sleep
  • Figure group – female and child
Object Number
1986.6.1
Palette
Linked Open Data URI

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