Figure of a Girl in Blue (portrait of Miss Minnie Clark) / Thomas Wilmer Dewing
About this Item
Record Details
- Accession Number
- 1968/2.68
- Title
- Figure of a Girl in Blue (portrait of Miss Minnie Clark)
- Artist
- Thomas Wilmer Dewing
- Artist Nationality
- American
- Artist Life Dates
- 1851 - 1938
- Medium and Support
- oil on canvas
- Object Creation Date
- circa 1892
- Object Creation Place
- North and Central America (continent)
- United States (nation)
- Creation Place 1
- North and Central America (continent)
- Creation Place 2
- United States (nation)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mr. Raymond C. Smith
- Style/Group/Movement
- Tonalism
- Inscription
- Inscribed, l.l.: T.W. Dewing
- Dimensions
- 74.3 cm x 92.39 cm (29 1/4 in. x 36 3/8 in.)
- Century
- 19th century
- Primary Object Classification
- Painting
- Primary Object Type
- portrait
- Physical Description
- Portrait of a woman with dark hair and fair skin seated in a chair wearing a blue dress amid a sparse background of blues, greens, and browns; her body is positioned at an angle towards the right, while she looks directly out at the viewer.
- Subject Matter
- This work is typical of many of Dewing’s paintings, depicting young, fine-boned, elegant women wearing the highest fashions of the day amid a sparse background and executed in muted tones of blues and grays lending to the overall mood of the piece. The painting is a portrait of Miss Minnie Clark, a 28-year-old working-class, Irish immigrant, who worked as an artist’s model in turn-of-the-century New York. She was in reasonable demand, and was considered to be very beautiful and the picture of youthful vigor, but in reality she was in poor health and could not afford the medicines she needed. She was a widow, and she modeled because she had no other skills with which to support her two children. Eventually Minnie married an architect and vanished into the American middle class.
- Secondary Keywords
- figures
- furnishings
- furnishings by form or function
- furniture
- furniture by form or function
- modern american styles and periods
- modern north american fine arts styles and movements
- modern north american styles and movements
- objects we use
- people
- people (agents)
- people and culture
- people and occupations
- people by gender
- seating furniture
- single seating furniture
- styles and periods
- styles and periods by region
- the americas
- visual works
- visual works by subject type
- Rights
- If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/about/services/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Technical Details
- Collection
- University of Michigan Museum of Art
- Image Size
- 1007 x 1495
- File Size
- 186 KB
- Record
- 1968/2.68
- Link to this Item
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1968-sl-2.68/1968_2.68.jpg
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- Full citation
-
"Figure of a Girl in Blue (portrait of Miss Minnie Clark); Thomas Wilmer Dewing." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1968-sl-2.68/1968_2.68.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 05, 2024.
