
Samoan Scene1908
Louis M. Eilshemius painted this in 1908, aged 44. It is now at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. More about this work
About this work
Louis M. Eilshemius painted this in 1908, aged 44. It is now at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Louis M. Eilshemius
New Jersey, 1864–1941
Eilshemius studied in New York and at the Académie Julian in Paris and travelled widely, as far as Samoa, painting romantic landscapes and nudes that found few admirers. Marcel Duchamp singled out his work at the 1917 exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, and modernist circles later championed him, but he had stopped painting around 1921 and spent his last decades writing eccentric, self-promoting pamphlets and letters.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 66.1730
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site












