Woman with a Sunflower | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Artist | Mary Cassatt |
Year | 1905 |
Medium | oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 92.1 cm× 73.7 cm(29 in× 36 1/4 in) |
Location | National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
Accession | 1963.10.98 |
Woman with a Sunflower is a 1905 oil painting by the American artist Mary Cassatt. It has been in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC since 1963. [1]
Woman with a Sunflower was among many paintings by Cassatt which were involved in a 1915 exhibition, which raised money for the suffrage campaign. This exhibition took place at the Knoedler Gallery in New York City, Louisine Havemeyer organised this exhibition. The entry fees and the sale of the pamphlets helped Havemeyer found the Woman Suffrage Campaign Fund. [2]
Cassatt is known for mothers and children being the subject of her paintings, and this theme is portrayed in this painting. Woman with a Sunflower depicts a woman and a girl who are both looking into a small circular mirror, from which they are both looking at the child's reflection. The mother's bright outfit draws attention to the child's nudity, which signifies innocence. The mother and child are connected with each other by their hand gestures and gazes towards the mirror. Two mirrors are shown in the painting, which create an arrangement of images within images, highlighting the main focus of the painting, that being the young girl's developing feminine identity under the help and care of a maternal influence, her mother. [3]
The sunflower depicted in Cassatt's painting is also a symbol of the suffrage movement, it is the Kansas state flower. The Suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony encouraged the use of the Sunflower by wearing sunflower pins when campaigning the right to vote in 1867 in Kansas. Throughout the 20th century the colour yellow was used to symbolise the suffrage movement. [4]
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction. The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer was an art collector, feminist, and philanthropist. In addition to being a patron of impressionist art, she was one of the more prominent contributors to the suffrage movement in the United States. The impressionist painter Edgar Degas and feminist Alice Paul were among the renowned recipients of this benefactor's support.
The Weeping Woman is a series of oil on canvas paintings by Pablo Picasso, the last of which was created in late 1937. The paintings depict Dora Maar, Picasso's mistress and muse. The Weeping Woman paintings were produced by Picasso in response to the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War and are closely associated with the iconography in his painting Guernica. Picasso was intrigued with the subject of the weeping woman, and revisited the theme numerous times that year. The last version, created on 26 October 1937, was the most elaborate of the series, and has been housed in the collection of the Tate Modern in London since 1987. Another Weeping Woman painting is housed at the National Gallery of Victoria and was involved in a high-profile political art theft.
The Child's Bath is an 1893 oil painting by American artist Mary Cassatt. The painting continues her interest in depicting bathing and motherhood, but it is distinct in its angle of vision. Both the subject matter and the overhead perspective were inspired by Japanese Woodcut prints and Edgar Degas.
The Railway, widely known as Gare Saint-Lazare, is an 1873 painting by Édouard Manet. It is the last painting by Manet of his favourite model, the fellow painter Victorine Meurent, who was also the model for his earlier works Olympia and the Luncheon on the Grass. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1874, and donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1956.
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair is an 1878 oil painting by the American painter, printmaker, pastelist, and connoisseur Mary Cassatt. It is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Edgar Degas made some changes in the painting.
Nina Evans Allender was an American artist, cartoonist, and women's rights activist. She studied art in the United States and Europe with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. Allender worked as an organizer, speaker, and campaigner for women's suffrage and was the "official cartoonist" for the National Woman's Party's publications, creating what became known as the "Allender Girl."
Gardner (Cassatt) Held by His Mother is a drypoint print dated circa 1889 by the American painter, printmaker, pastelist, and connoisseur Mary Cassatt. The example illustrated is in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and is a gift of Samuel Putnam Avery.
Una Harriet Ella Stratford Duval was a British suffragette and marriage reformer. Her refusal to say "and obey" in her marriage vows made national news. She bought the painting of Christabel Pankhurst by the suffragist Ethel Wright which was later donated to the National Portrait Gallery.
Ida Sedgwick Proper was an American suffragist, writer and artist. She was an art editor for The Woman Voter. Proper has work in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, and the Des Moines Art Center.
The Boating Party is an oil painting by American artist Mary Cassatt created in 1893. It is also known under the titles La partie en bateau; La barque; Les canotiers; and En canot. Measuring nearly three by four feet, it is Cassatt’s largest and most ambitious painting. It has been in the Chester Dale Collection of the National Gallery of Art since 1963.
Young Mother Sewing aka Little Girl Leaning on her Mother's Knee is a 1900 painting by Mary Cassatt. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Mary Cassatt. The painting depicts a mother and her child in front of a mirror. The painting provides a glimpse of the domestic life of a mother and her child, evoking religious iconography from the Italian Renaissance. However, portrayals of a mother and her child are common in Cassatt's work, so it is possible that this similarity is coincidental rather than intentional.
Women's suffrage, the legal right of women to vote, has been depicted in film in a variety of ways since the invention of narrative film in the late nineteenth century. Some early films satirized and mocked suffragists and Suffragettes as "unwomanly" "man-haters," or sensationalized documentary footage. Suffragists countered these depictions by releasing narrative films and newsreels that argued for their cause. After women won the vote in countries with a national cinema, women's suffrage became a historical event depicted in both fiction and nonfiction films.
Women's suffrage in California refers to the political struggle for voting rights for women in the state of California. The movement began in the 19th century and was successful with the passage of Proposition 4 on October 10, 1911. Many of the women and men involved in this movement remained politically active in the national suffrage movement with organizations such as the National American Women's Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party.
New York Society of Women Artists (NYSWA) is a group of women that aims to provide support and opportunities to female professional artists. The society was founded in 1925 by 26 women. NYSWA organizes exhibitions and events featuring female artists in US.
Art in the women's suffrage movement of the United States played a critical role. Art was used both as propaganda and as a way to represent the leaders of the movement as historical records. Art sales and shows were also used to raise money for campaigns.
The Suffrage Torch was a wooden and bronze-finished sculpture of a torch that was used in the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania women's suffrage campaigns starting in the summer of 1915. The torch was the idea of Harriot Stanton Blatch who wanted a visual publicity stunt to draw attention to the suffrage campaigns. The torch traveled throughout New York state and was handed over to Mina Van Winkle, head of the New Jersey suffragists. The torch was stolen in New Jersey and later recovered in Philadelphia. The suffrage torch drew a good deal of publicity during its use in the campaigns taking place in those three states.
Girl Arranging Her Hair is an 1886 painting by American artist Mary Cassatt. The painting currently is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. It was originally exhibited at the Eighth and last Impressionist exhibition, which opened on May 15, 1886.