Jean-François Millet’s Man with a Hoe may be the most historically significant painting in the Getty Museum’s collection of nineteenth-century European art. It all began with the painting’s shocking Paris debut in 1863, where it was attacked for its depiction of peasant labor as a glorification of ugliness and human degradation. The debut initiated a chain reaction of responses, critiques, reproductions, and interpretations that fueled a global dialogue around Man with a Hoe. Then, over 30 years later in San Francisco, the painting inspired a politically charged poem that critiqued oppressive labor conditions and suggested a great reckoning to come. This exhibition explores the impact of one of the most provocative icons of manual labor.
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