American artist Claude Buck was born in New York City on July 3, 1890. Buck was trained by his father, allowed to copy old master paintings in the Met by age seven, and thereafter studied in Munich. This portrait, designated The Derelict, presents a wizened elder who braves his lack of shelter or sustenance with stoical dignity. Unfazed by his own circumstance, the subject looks with concern beyond himself at others who possess even less. This poignant work is featured for the first time in the MOA’s galleries as one of the compelling stories brought together in the new exhibition, Becoming America.