Newport

Label

At the end of the 19th century, Newport, Rhode Island, had become one of the premier examples of the extravagance of the Gilded Age, complete with millionaires’ mansions and bustling social clubs. Wealthy cities like Newport were also at the forefront of the commodification of athletics and leisure culture that would later become a staple of American national identity. 

As tennis became a favorite pastime of the East Coast elite, sports resorts arose in affluent areas, at once enhancing class solidarity amongst the wealthy and dismantling the rigid gender segregation of social clubs and most workplaces. Many of these athletic spaces enabled elite women to begin to reconstruct gender identities, but that is not the case here. Only men hold the tennis rackets in this drawing, while the women are spectators, serving almost as accessories to the male athletes.

From the 2024 exhibition, A Space for Dialogue 117, Sports Culture: Gender, Belonging, and Nationhood, Madyson Buchalski '24, Conroy Intern

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 117, Sports Culture: Gender, Belonging, and Nationhood, Madyson Buchalski '24, Conroy Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 9 - May 5, 2024

Provenance

Found in collection; catalogued, 2015.

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Subjects