Seymour Joseph Guy (1824–1910)

SEYMOUR JOSEPH GUY (1824–1910)
Peek-a-Boo
Oil on canvas, 12 x 15 1/8 in.
Signed (at lower right): S.J. Guy [initials in monogram]

Within the field of genre paintings, Guy specialized in scenes depicting children in anecdotal situations. An unidentified reporter for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper described Guy’s milieu in his report on a visit to the artist’s atelier in the Tenth Street Studio Building (1867): “Mr. Guy is fond of painting quaint social subjects, especially those in which children are the actors; and in the production of candle light effects, he is excelled by but few contemporaneous painters” (as quoted in Annette Blaugrund, “The Tenth Street Studio Building,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1987, p. 378). Peek-a-Boo is therefore a textbook example of the type of work that made Guy so popular in his lifetime.