Name/Title
The Cake Sale (2nd Block) | Pauline Winchester Inman | Wood Engraving | 1953Description
Artist: Pauline Inman
Medium: Woodblock engraving
Circa: 1953
Old Accession Number: 1837
Description:
Signed bottom left. 1 of 2 copies.
Cake Sale, 1953
Wood Engraving
Pauline Inman’s most widely exhibited and collected print, Cake Sale was exhibited in at least eleven exhibitions–from Maine to the United Kingdom and Italy–and entered into the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Penn State College, and the Library of Congress in 1955. With a similar feeling to the nearby print Neighbors, Cake Sale evokes the spirit of a small community joining together in leisure–supporting a local business, contributing to a local fundraiser, or taking part in a local entertainment. Multiple generations flood through the local sale, coming with their hard-earned money and leaving with a small luxury for themselves or their families. Inman chose to employ a composition in which the figures block the actual subject of the work’s title, preventing the viewer from seeing the items sold on the table. This artistic decision by Inman shifts the focus of the composition from what is being sold, to who is buying it and allows the viewer to complete the scene in their mind. The gathering of the community becomes the main subject of the composition.
The two women on the left end of the table with buns appear again as the two locals depicted in the print Neighbors (exhibited nearby).