Docent Training at The High..#2 Portrait of Anne

George Bellows, Portrait of Anne, 1915

Oil on Canvas

Stent Family Wing, Third Level 

·         Let’s take a moment and look at this adorable girl.  What is the dominating feature of this painting? Is it girl or is it the beautiful shades of blue?

·         George Bellows was an American realist painter. At the time of his death Bellows was one of the most acclaimed arts of his generation. In the early 1900’s Bellows became a student of Robert Henri.

     

  At the end of this room we can see one of Henri’s paintings “The Lady in Black”. Bellows joined Henri in advocating contemporary American Society in all forms. However, Bellows' series of paintings portraying amateur boxing matches were arguably his signature contribution to art history. These paintings are

·         When George Bellows painted “Portrait of Anne” he used a new color system developed Chicago artist Hardesty G. Marietta. Marietta was influenced many American painters in the early twentieth century. Marietta believed that 144 pure colors, arranged on a metal palette, could fully supply any artist needs. Bellow liked to work quickly and this new system relieved him of the task of mixing colors. His paintings took on a brightness of evident in the clean, vibrant palette of this portrait. It’s colors are unlabored and unmuddled. The fresh combination of purple, turquoise, and aquamarine juxtaposed to the stark white of Anne’s dress, her stockings and the creamy white of her complexion. 

·         The lively open brushwork of the painting gives shape and form to the compostion and as Henri describes it “strokes which laugh. 

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  How long do you think it took for Bellows to paint this painting? Do you think that Anne enjoyed sitting for it? I am not sure how long it took for Bellows to paint this portrait, but I know that Anne was used to sitting for her father. In 1910 Bellows married Emma Story and they had two daughters, Anne and Jean.  Anne and Jean sat through dozens of portraits with their father. I know the secret that made Anne sit for so long…can you guess what it was? Anne was paid twenty-five cents an hour to sit for her father

Jean the Bean

There is a poem written about Anne in her sister, would you like to hear it?

Here I lie and take my ease

And write my letters on my knees.

Remember me to Anne and Jean,

Anne the slim and Jean the bean,

Anne who laughs and Jean who squeaks,

Jean who squats and Anne who sits

Anne who dances while Jean has fits,

Anne who eats and Jean who stuffs

Anne in collars and Jean in cuffs

Anne in the lithe and lank and lean

And the oldest sister of Jean the Bean