{"data":{"id":"3541","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":3541,"topgoose_id":16594,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":3541,"title":"The Ardent Bowlers","display_artist_text":"Peggy Bacon","display_date":"1932","accession_number":"32.85","dimensions":"Sheet: 11 3/8 × 18 5/8 in. (28.9 × 47.3 cm)\r\nPlate: 6 × 13 15/16 in. (15.2 × 35.4 cm)","medium":"Drypoint","department":"collection","classification":"Prints","credit_line":"Purchase","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":"Ed. 125","publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003ePeggy Bacon, \u003cem\u003eThe Ardent Bowlers\u003c/em\u003e, 1932. Drypoint, sheet: 11 3/8 × 18 5/8 in. (28.9 × 47.3 cm)\r\nPlate: 6 × 13 15/16 in. (15.2 × 35.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 32.85. © A. B. Brook for the Estate of Peggy Bacon\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eIn the 1920s and 1930s, Peggy Bacon earned a reputation as a clever caricaturist and perceptive chronicler of the flourishing New York artistic community. Her drypoint print \u003ci\u003eThe Ardent Bowlers\u003c/i\u003e depicts a weekly gathering at a bowling alley on Third Avenue, replete with a self-portrait and peopled by artist friends including Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, and her husband Alexander Brook. The result of numerous sketches, \u003ci\u003eThe Ardent Bowlers\u003c/i\u003e does not document a particular evening, but records the artist’s general impressions in the spirit of her well-known satires of the 1920s, in which, as she put it, she wanted to convey “a spicy and clairvoyant comment upon the subject’s peculiarities.”\u003ci\u003e \u003c/i\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Ardent Bowlers\u003c/i\u003e, physical features are exaggerated for comic effect, and the title itself is subtly humorous. Few of the “ardent” bowlers are actually paying attention to the game. Instead, they chat among themselves, suggesting that their passion is conversation, not bowling. Bacon’s satirical portraits were never mean-spirited, but she eventually became uncomfortable with caricature and abandoned it by the mid-1930s.\u003ci\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A crowded bowling alley with people socializing, watching bowlers, and servers carrying drinks.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:33:20.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:16.333-05:00","images":[{"id":95306,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/3541/32_85_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"44","type":"artist"}]}}}}