The orchestra pit, old Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theatre
Shinn, Everett (1876-1953)
- Yale University Art Gallery
[Museum inv. no.: 2002.132.1]
Item location
Description
Leaving details of specific instruments for the observer to fill in, this painting presents a realistic view of a scene in a theatre: Separated from the audience by a curtain, musicians in a portion of the orchestra pit occupy the foreground, three girls in dance costumes onstage are visible on a level above them. One violin can be seen, another is implied; two bows are visible; printed music, music stands, and stand lights can be seen. Two of the performers on stage hold musical instruments (trumpet and tambourine) and one bends to speak to someone in the orchestra.Commentary from the museum website: Among the first American artists to embrace the theater as a signature theme, Shinn had a lifelong involvement with popular entertainment, working as playwright, producer, set designer, and actor. Around the time he painted The Orchestra Pit, Shinn was commissioned by David Belasco to create murals for his Broadway theater. Belasco’s experiments with electric lighting find expression in Shinn’s painting of musicians silhouetted against a stage bathed in an aquamarine glow. One performer provocatively engages a musician at the conclusion of their act at Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theatre, a leading New York vaudeville house. By the turn of the century, vaudeville was the most popular form of entertainment in America, offering a variety format that attracted people from every social class. Frederick F. Proctor, the first director of a traditional theater to successfully convert it into a vaudeville house, soon managed a chain of them. Shinn painted this scene during a pivotal year in the impresario’s career; in April 1906, jubilee celebrations attracted overflowing audiences to Proctor’s Fifth Avenue, but in May an alliance between Proctor and another manager merged their houses under the name Keith and Proctor.
Iconclass
48C8133curtain ~ stage
48C85
theatre, theatrical performance
48C7531
large group of musicians, orchestra
48C7311
violin, fiddle
48C738
accessories ~ music: music-stand
48C74
notation of music
48C842
ballet group; dancers on the stage
48C853
stage costume
48C865
vaudeville, variety show
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Violin [3573]Bow [2207]
Trumpet [4446]
Tambourine [2746]
RIdIM images
Image URLs
image link 1Bibliographic references
Art for Yale: Collecting for a new century, exhibition catalogue (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2007) 109, 369, pl. 96.Barratt, Carrie Rebora, et al. American stories: Paintings of everyday life 1765–1915, eds. H. Barbara Weinberg and Carrie Rebora Barratt, exhibition catalogue (New Haven, Conn.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009) 172, no. 172, ill.