The True American

The True American

Enoch Wood Perry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Perry painted this oil in preparation for a widely distributed chromolithograph that uses humor to mock the impossible ideal of national unity. The True American, also titled The Bummers (meaning a bum or vagrant), implies that the subjects of the painting are coarse, non-thinking citizens. The cropped sign above the door reads "The National Hotel." The mindless male figures, one of whom reads the newspaper "The True American," present only their backsides, with heads concealed, as does the depicted horse at left, and the dog at right. In these terms, the artist comments on the willful ignorance of the voting population in the United States during the Reconstruction era.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.