Art and Words

Self-Portrait with Palette, Painter and Faun

Description

Florine Stettheimer’s dreamy, theatrical paintings range from surrealistic, symbol-laden scenes to diaristic portrayals of upper-crust lifestyles in the interwar era. Stettheimer is also credited as one of the first women to ever paint a full-scale nude self-portrait; her subversive feminist spirit infuses much of her work. The artist’s loose, liquid brushstrokes and soft, washed-out, Fauvist color palettes add a fantastical dimension to her compositions, which variously feature floral arrangements and vibrant, intricately arranged nature and party scenes viewed from distorted perspectives. Stettheimer, who also wrote poetry and created set designs, became an important member and supporter of New York’s avant-garde: She ran influential salons with her sister, which drew artists including Marcel Duchamp and Georgia O’Keeffe. Her work has sold for six figures at auction and belongs in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others.

Chop Suey

The scene depicts two women at a table in a restaurant with another couple in the background. The only features being shown in particular detail are the painted woman’s face, the coat hanging above her, her companion’s back (to the viewer), the features of the couple in the background, the tea pot on the table, the masked lower window panel, and the restaurant sign outside. These are all features that would bring a sensory element (besides sight) to the memory painted: the buzzing noise of the outside light, the voices of the people in the background, the texture of the coat, the taste of the tea and smell of the cigarette smoke (held by the man), and the muddled light from the masked window.

J. Ellis Bonham

Painting of John And Louisa Stock

As a prolific itinerant portraitist in the Connecticut River valley, Stock kept a journal of his daily activities, recording that he painted more than nine hundred works between 1832 and 1846. From the age of eleven, Stock was paralyzed from the waist down. He was able to travel in later years with the aid of a specially designed wheelchair. The children seen here are thought to be those of the artist’s younger brother, Isaac C. Stock, and sister-in-law, Sarah Hunt Stock, of Springfield, Massachusetts. Painting his subjects at full length, the artist employed colorful props in a detailed interior containing flat, abstract elements that are appealing to the modern eye.