Jean Virginia M. Hogan (Connecticut, 1909-before 1975) oil on Masonite Regionalist painting of an African American man asleep on the grass. A hat and a partially eaten apple lie on the ground at left. The man''s shoe and pant leg have holes in them and his head rests on a jacket or blanket. Beneath the figure and at his feet are newsprint publications: one is William Armstrong Jockeys Scratches-a popular publication that listed the horses withdrawn from a day''s horse races, along with betting odds and statistics-and another is a program or advertisement for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Signed "Hogan," upper right, and additionally signed "Jean [Hoga]n" faintly en verso. With brass plaque to back of frame that reads "Springfield Art League Exhibition – 1942 / Springfield, Massachusetts / First Prize – Oil Painting." Housed in an Art Deco gilt wood frame. Board: 22" H x 27" W. Frame: 31 1/2" H x 36 1/2" W. Biographical note: Jean Hogan was born in Hartford Connecticut. She studied at Pembroke College and became a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, the Springfield Art League, and the Hartford Society of Woman Painters. Her work has been exhibited in the National Academy of Design, the Ogunquit Art Center, Brown University, the Morton Gallery, New York in 1945, and the New York World''s Fair in 1939, among others. In 1938 and 1942 she won awards from the Springfield Art League, the latter for the present painting, and in 1943 won an award from the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts. She was a part of the American Regionalist movement of the 1930s and ''40s and later created abstract art.

CONDITION: Overall very good condition. Minor retouching to background, upper left, beneath figure''s chin, and to sgraffito linework above figure''s left foot, largest 7/16" L. Five negligible points of retouching to figure''s right pant leg below the knee. See UV photographs.