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Arthur Bowen Davies American, 1863-1928 Playing in the Woods (Loitering Children) Oil on canvas 18 x 22 inches Provenance: Possibly the estate of the artist Ferargil Galleries, New York Mary Adams Hedges The estate of Mary Adams Hedges Private collection Exhibited: Detroit, MI, Detroit Institute of Arts, Mar. 2-May 25, 2008, Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925; traveled to: Nashville, TN, First Center for the Visual Arts, Aug. 2-Oct. 28, 2007; New York, New York Historical Society, Nov. 18, 2007-Feb. 10, 2008 (p. 172 color illus.) New York, Spanierman Gallery, LLC, Arthur B. Davies: Painter, Poet, Romancer & Mystic, Mar. 29-Apr. 28, 2012 (catalogue by Lisa N. Peters) Long Island, NY, Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, Children's Pleasures: American Celebrations of Childhood, Feb. 2 - Apr. 18, 2010 Literature: James W. Tottis et al. Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925. exh. cat. (New York: Merrell, 2007) p. 172 color illus. (cat. 52) Children Playing may have been among the paintings Davies exhibited in his solo exhibition at Keppel Galleries in Chicago in April of 1896. The Chicago Daily Tribune described the exhibition as consisting "mostly of small studies of children at play in meadows or woods, wandering among the flowers and trees, or listening to a story of some fairy princess." While evoking a dreamlike landscape, the painting may have been drawn from Davies' direct observations of his sons and nieces playing together in the woods. A girl has hitched up a shorter boy for a game of horse-and-carriage, using a set of the "toy reins" advertised during the day in sales catalogues such as those of Sears. Thus, in its realism, this is among Davies' works that is closest to the spirit of the Ashcan School. C The Spanierman Gallery, LLC