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Francis Henry Richardson (1859-1934). "Girl in Blue". browse these categories for related items... All Items: Fine Art:Paintings:Oil:N. America:American: Pre 1910: item # 883586 Please refer to our stock # 2463 when inquiring.
Raymond Agler Fine Arts 16 Pleasant Street Gloucester, Massachusetts 01930 978-281-5048 Guest Book Price on Request |
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| Oil on canvas, 26 x 32 inches, 36 x 42 framed, signed l.r. and inscribed "Girl in Blue"/F.H. Richardson/Ipswich,Mass." verso. The work was painted at "Meadowview", the Ipswich, Massachusetts home that Ralph Adams Cram designed for the artist c. 1902. Richardson belonged to that group of New England artists, including Arthur Wesley Dow, Henry Rodman Kenyon, Childe Hassam and Willard Metcalf, who studied together in Paris in the 1880's at the Academie Julian. Richardson exhibited at the Paris Salons of 1889, 1890 and 1894-99. It is interesting to note that Richardson was in Paris the same year(1891) that Whistler's "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother" was acquired by the Musee du Luxembourg. He undoubtedly saw the already famous work and seems to have adopted many of the unusual characteristics (the seated profile pose, the attention of the sitter engaged elsewhere) of that painting in this composition. Michael Quick's commentary on Whistler ("American Portraiture in the Grand Manner", Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1981) applies also to the Richardson portrait: "These three qualities-repose, elegance and decorative effect-are the constants of Whistler's portraiture ..." Returning to this country, Kenyon, Dow and Richardson settled in Ipswich. Richardson's American exhibition venues included the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery and the Detroit Museum of Art. Locally, he exhibited frequently at the Gloucester Society of Artists, the North Shore Art Association as well as the Boston Art Club. This painting was recently discovered in Maine. (Much of the biographical information above is from the excellent catalogue "The Ipswich Painters at Home and Abroad", 1993, Cape Ann Historical Museum). | ||
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