Passing Song

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Passing Song, before 1902, oil on wood, 8 ¹⁄₂ x 4 ³⁄₈ in. (21.6 x 11.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.103

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Artwork Details

Title: Passing Song
Artist: Albert Pinkham Ryder
Date: before 1902
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum
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Luce Foundation Center
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3rd Floor
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6B
Dimensions: 8 ¹⁄₂ x 4 ³⁄₈ in. (21.6 x 11.1 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of John Gellatly
Mediums: oil
Mediums Description: oil on wood
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Literature — Ryder — Passing Song
Performing arts — music — voice
Landscape — coast
Landscape — water
Waterscape — boat
Figure female
Object Number: 1929.6.103
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1929.6.103

Artwork Description

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)