Thomas Waterman Wood is best known for richly detailed genre paintings that provide a window to the world of 19^th-century America. The warmth and humor he brought to his subjects made the artist much in demand as a portraitist and accounts for the enduring appeal of his genre and portrait subjects.

Wood was born in Montpelier, Vermont to John Wood (a cabinet maker) and Mary  Waterman Wood. He studied briefly with portraitist Chester Harding in Boston, but primarily was self-taught. He began his career as an itinerant portrait painter, working in New Jersey, New York, Washington DC, and Quebec, before settling into a two-year residence in Baltimore, Maryland in 1856.  While in Baltimore, Wood had as many as six or seven sittings per day and was able to put enough money aside to undertake a year-long Grand Tour of Europe, where he studied the masters and Old Masters.

Truants was undertaken as a commission received from George Bryce Hoffman, whose portrait Wood painted in January 1857. Heretofore Wood’s genre work consisted of cabinet-size paintings of single figures posed before plain dark backgrounds. Thus, Truants in size, complexity and detail is without precedent and is a pivotal painting in the artist’s career. Wood carefully rendered the figures and features of the children in Truants, foretelling the consummate portraitist that he was to become. The foliage is drawn with remarkable care and gives evidence of Wood’s close observation of natural detailing. The stream, in combination with the farmhouse and barn to which it leads the viewer’s eye, provides an Arcadian setting, perfect for depicting the carefree joys of childhood. Such a scene would have been desirable by a man like Hoffman, who resided in a booming urban center at mid-century. Truants connotes the simple, timeless pleasures of childhood.