The Lady in Pink (Portrait of the artist's wife)
The Lady in Pink (Portrait of the artist's wife)
- portraits
- women
- 19th century American
- American Impressionism
Like John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, both of whom Chase befriended in the 1880s, Chase was interested in the idea of conceiving of paintings as color harmonies. Perhaps in emulation of both artists, he chose the color pink as his ‘key’ for this full-length portrait of his wife, née Alice Gerson, the daughter of the manager of a successful lithography firm. This likeness dates from the year before their marriage and must have been painted by the artist as a personal record of his fiancée’s youthful beauty (she was seventeen years his junior).
The schematic nature of the brushwork, which suggests as much as it describes, echoes the technique of Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet, whose art Chase knew and admired. His model’s body, swathed in a diaphanous morning robe, is still credibly palpable, despite the extremely limited range of tonal contrast available to him in this medley of pink tones. The elegance of Chase’s technique made him a popular choice of portraitist for fashionable women. This example of his aptitude as a flattering portraitist must have been prominently displayed in his Tenth Street Manhattan studio to attract high society clients.