January Bills (Primary Title)
David Gilmour Blythe, American, 1815 - 1865 (Artist)
A notoriously satirical genre painter, David Gilmour Blythe offers a hard dose of critique and caricature in January Bills. The painting depicts James P. Barr, owner of the Pittsburgh Post, seated at his desk in a dimly lit office. A copy of the newspaper hangs on the wall, beneath the oval portrait. A proslavery advocate living in an abolitionist city, the much-reviled Barr is given small feet and grotesque features by the politically sensitive Blythe. Above the mantle at left, a calendar identifies the date as January 4, accounting for the heavy clothing worn by the debt collector at the door. The date also suggests that Barr is three days late paying his bills—a string of unpaid invoices hangs on the side of the desk, partially covered by the “1859 almanac.”
Pittsburgh Library Loan Exhibition, Pittsburgh Library, Library Hall Building, 1879
An Exhibition of Paintings by David G. Blythe, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, December 22, 1932–January 31, 1933, no. 21
Paintings by David G. Blythe, 1815–1865; Drawings by Joseph Boggs Beale, 1841–1926,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 7–May 7, 1936
Life in America for 300 Years: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 17–November 21, 1939, no. 3039.11
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