Iconic Jean-François Millet Painting Examined in New Book

For the French artist Jean-François Millet (1814–1875), the central figure of his painting Man with a Hoe (1860–62) embodied a fundamental human condition described in the Bible: that of being condemned to earn a living by the sweat of one’s brow.

A monumentalizing portrayal of a peasant bowed over by brutal toil, Man with a Hoe is a tribute to dignity in the face of a life of unremitting exertion.

Reckoning with Millet’s “Man with a Hoe,” 1863–1900 situates the work in the arc of Millet’s career and traces its fascinating and contentious reception, from its scandalous debut at the 1863 Paris Salon to the years following its acquisition by American collectors in the 1890s. The essays examine the painting’s tumultuous public life, beginning in France, where critics attacked it on aesthetic and political grounds as a radical realist provocation; through its transformative movement in the art market during the remaining years of the artist’s life and following his death; to its highly publicized arrival in California as a celebrated masterpiece. In the United States it was enlisted to serve philanthropic interests, became the subject of a popular poem, and once again became embroiled in controversy, in this case one that was strongly inflected by American racial politics. This is the first publication dedicated to the work since its acquisition by the Getty Museum in 1985.

This volume accompanies an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from September 12 to December 10, 2023.