1961.69.168
Portrait of George Otis Hamlin (single impression)
Artist
John Sloan
(Loch Haven, Pennsylvania, 8/27/1871 - 9/7/1951, Hanover, New Hampshire)
Title
Portrait of George Otis Hamlin (single impression)
Creation Date
1918
Dimensions
3/4 in. (1.9 cm.)
Object Type
print
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
etching on paper
Credit Line
Bequest of George Otis Hamlin
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
1961.69.168
This lilliputian portrait of George Otis Hamlin, one of John Sloan’s most important supporters, was created by etching a penny and creating a print from its reworked surface. The playful likeness simultaneously evokes the tradition of commissioning medallic portraits, launched during the Renaissance, to honor civic leaders and the related use of such images to endorse currency. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln’s profile had only been added to the coin in 1909, less than a decade before Sloan reclaimed the object as an unconventional “plate,” which the artist may have understood in part as an homage to Duchamp’s “readymade” artworks. The implicit reference to Lincoln, whose portrait was erased to make way for that of Hamlin, points to yet another witticism: George Hamlin’s great uncle, Hannibal Hamlin, served as Vice-President to Lincoln during his first term in office. Sloan’s association of Hamlin with the newly designed tender proved prescient. Just five years later, in 1923, Hamlin purchased nineteen paintings by Sloan, providing a windfall to the cash-strapped artist, and securing for Hamlin a group of works that he would later bequeath to Bowdoin.
Additional Media
recto, overall
