Richard Caton Woodville
Look closely at this painting. What seems amiss? Three men are gathered in a tavern, a common waiting area for stagecoaches. Two play cards while a third reads a newspaper nearby. Yet he wears the glasses of a blind man and the journal is titled The Spy—hints of deception taking place. Typical of the art of Richard Caton Woodville, this richly detailed interior scene contains visual clues that piece together a story. The standing man, who can readily see both men's cards from his elevated vantage point, appears to be conspiring with the traveler (note the carpetbag) who may be a conman, to dupe the third man. The glint of the third man's wedding ring demonstrates how much is at stake in this game.
Despite his short career, Woodville established himself as a genre artist whose paintings reflected American social and political life. At age twenty, he moved to Germany to study art and remained abroad his entire life. Ironically, he never exhibited in Europe; instead, he sent his paintings back to America as soon as they were completed for exhibition through the American Art-Union. He drew upon scenes from his hometown of Baltimore, painting from sketches that he brought with him, and only returned to America on two occasions when he needed more subject matter. Woodville died at age thirty of an accidental morphine overdose having completed only twenty oil paintings.
- Martina Keogan