Loading

Attention, Company!

William Harnett1878

Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Fort Worth, Texas, United States

Virtually untrained, William Harnett painted trompe l’oeil (“fool the eye”) still lifes, arrangements of life-size objects rendered so realistically as to seem three dimentional. With Attention, Company!Harnett took the bold step of creating an illusionistic study of a child. This painting challenged the land-standing notion of Harnett as an artist concerned only with the outward appearance of inanimate objects with not the deeper meaning. “I endeavor to make the composition tell a story,” Harnett once
said of his art. But what narrative does he offer here in the face of this young boy, frozen at attention as a make-believe soldier, with his tattered clothes, his crisp newspaper hat, and the inscrutable graffiti-laden wall behind him?

Show lessRead more
  • Title: Attention, Company!
  • Creator: William Michael Harnett
  • Creator Lifespan: 1848/1892
  • Creator Nationality: American
  • Creator Gender: male
  • Creator Death Place: New York, New York
  • Creator Birth Place: Clonakilty, Ireland
  • Date Created: 1878
  • Physical Dimensions: w71.1 x h91.4 cm
  • Type: paintings
  • Rights: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas
  • External Link: Amon Carter Museum of American Art
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Get the app

Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more

Interested in Visual arts?

Get updates with your personalized Culture Weekly

You are all set!

Your first Culture Weekly will arrive this week.

Home
Discover
Play
Nearby
Favorites