Young Street Performers

Samuel S. Carr (1837-1908)
American.
Oil on canvas
18″ x 24″
Signed (at lower left): S.S. Carr
Original canvas stamp on the reverse:
WINSOR & NEWTON / 38 RATHBONE PLACE / LONDON /
FROM / C.W. KEENAN / MANUFACTURER OF … /
DEALER IN (illegible)
Remnant of old label on the reverse
unlined canvas, original stretcher of Eastern Pine
Like his contemporary, J.G. Brown, Samuel S. Carr immigrated to the United States from England.  By 1865 he had established himself in Brooklyn, NY.  He, like Brown, devoted himself to painting charming genre scenes depicting children at home, the beach or on the streets of Brooklyn and New York.  Carr displays empathy towards his young subjects and his paintings are wonderful historical documents of life in New York and its environs in the last half of the 19th century.