Famous Banjos

Know Eastman Johnson? He was a contemporary of Winslow Homer and in the 1880s, there was a similar skill level though Johnson is now considered a "genre" artist which is an unfortunate category. This painting is at LACMA here in LA right now in the traveling exposition of Americana art. It's a lot brighter and warmer in person. He looked like this:

Ole Winslow worked for hire as most of them did, doing magazine illustrations until he discovered his watercolors would make him a living instead.

Found this interesting site of Self-portraits:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3aRcv9LEIAc/SnZ5JeAp7CI/AAAAAAAAPRs/fKdxncuLGFg/s400/Eastman%2BJohnson2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://portraitsofpainters.blogspot.com/2009/08/eastman-johnson.html&usg=__7cyexkN-tbCeBr3ZSotwn7NzXAI=&h=400&w=321&sz=13&hl=en&start=11&itbs=1&tbnid=dvhPOm8nsGDnhM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3DEastman%2BJohnson%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1