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Merry Christmas (Yuletide Revels)

William Glackens

American Art

Full of humorous vignettes, this work presents William Glackens at the height of his powers as a draftsman and storyteller. In a large room decorated for Christmas, throngs of children play with their new toys—often with painful consequences—while a few adults make futile attempts to control the chaos. Glackens’s figure style is slightly cartoonish but incorporates descriptive details that endow each child with a distinct personality. Reproduced in Collier’s Weekly, one of the nation’s most popular magazines of the period, this image comments ironically on the innocence of children and the joys of the holiday season.
MEDIUM Graphite, Conté crayon, ink, and transparent and opaque watercolor on laminated board adhered to wood pulp board
DATES ca. 1910
DIMENSIONS Sheet: 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. (61.9 x 47 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed in conte crayon, lower right: "W. Glackens"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 63.58
CREDIT LINE Gift of Ira Glackens
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Reproduced as a full-page illustration in "Collier's, The National Weekly" 46, no 12 (December 10, 1910): 30.
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION William Glackens (American, 1870–1938). Merry Christmas (Yuletide Revels), ca. 1910. Graphite, Conté crayon, ink, and transparent and opaque watercolor on laminated board adhered to wood pulp board, Sheet: 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. (61.9 x 47 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Ira Glackens, 63.58 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 63.58_PS6.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 63.58_PS6.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2012
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