Reckoning with Millet’s Man with a Hoe

This focused exhibition charts the tumultuous public life of Jean-François Millet’s iconic depiction of peasant labor, Man with a Hoe, which was bookended by two moments of controversy. 

First, the painting’s shocking Paris debut in 1863, where it was attacked as a glorification of ugliness and human degradation. 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.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website