Seymour Joseph Guy (1824-1910)
A Summer Pastime, 1891
Oil on canvas
18 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches
Signed and dated "SJ Guy 1891" lower left
Period frame

Seymour Joseph Guy was a prominent National Academy genre painter who worked in the famous Tenth Street Studio Building in New York with such contemporaries as Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson. Guy delighted in rendering the effects of light on the tactile surfaces of the fashionable interiors he portrayed in his highly finished figure paintings.

In A Summer Pastime, he transfers this interest to the outdoors, giving equal weight to the figure and the landscape. Guy lavishes the same care on the sunlit, wild undergrowth as he does upon the figure and her wicker sewing basket, bursting with colorful fabric. It is through this balance of emphasis that the artist evokes a convincing sense of place that allows the viewer to feel a part of the scene.

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