History of a Picture No. 2: The Public

The second panel of Wilcox's History of a Picture series shows the same artwork — now accepted by the jury and hung in the exhibition — being viewed by the general public. Where the jury scene was an insider's view of the selection process, The Public is an anthropological study of exhibition-going. The viewers approach the picture with a range of reactions: puzzlement, admiration, boredom, discussion. Wilcox draws each spectator with the same careful observation he brought to his market scenes and harbor views, finding the same structural interest in human behavior that he found in architecture.

The pairing of Before the Jury and The Public creates a complete circuit: art judged by experts, then consumed by the public. Wilcox's point is that neither process is more authentic than the other — both are forms of social behavior that the artist endures rather than controls. The artwork itself, glimpsed in both panels, is the silent center around which these human activities revolve.

The Public completes Wilcox's meditation on the life of a picture. The message is democratic and a little melancholy: art belongs to everyone, but everyone sees it differently, and the artist has no control over any of it.