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Artist/Maker
Marion Greenwood
(American, 1909 – 1970)
Datec. 1927
MediumPencil on paper
DimensionsSheet: 19 5/8 × 14 1/8 in. (49.8 × 35.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz
Object number2018.10
Not on view
DescriptionThis portrait by Marion Greenwood is of an unidentified artist or writer present at the Yaddo colony in Saratoga Springs, NY. Yaddo welcomed its first group of artists in 1926 and this drawing was likely made quite early in its history. Marion Greenwood studied at the Art Students’ League under John Sloan and others. While still in her teenage years, she attended the Yaddo colony. Influenced by Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, she traveled to Mexico in 1933 and took up fresco painting. Later in life, she explained, “I had a chance to go with two writers that I had met in Yaddo and everybody was talking about, and I had seen, reproductions, and in fact I had seen, Rivera's frescoes. At any rate, I was dying to get there and to look and sketch and paint.” When she returned to the United States, she worked as a muralist with the government’s Public Works of Art (WPA) project. The two writers that Greenwood traveled to Mexico with may have been spouses John Herrman and Josephine Herbst. It is possible, but not confirmed, that Herrman is the sitter of the portrait. If the portrait is indeed Herrman, it would also serve as testament to a circle of far left socialist thinkers active among artistic and literary circles in America at the time, many of whom found Mexico to be fertile ground for their beliefs, as attested by the presence of Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Leon Trotsky, and others during the 1930s. (Written by Katherine Alcauskas, Collections Curator and Exhibitions Manager)
Collections
Additional Details
Alternate Titles
Portrait of an unknown sitter
Provenance
2018: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by gift of Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, New York;
? - 2018: Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, New York, by purchase from the artist's estate.
? - 2018: Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, New York, by purchase from the artist's estate.
Markings
Stamp: Marion Greenwood estate stamp on verso.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Date: 1976 (printed c. 1977, published 1979)
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1980.2.1
Julia Margaret Cameron
Date: 1867 (published 1893)
Medium: Photogravure, mounted on matboard
Object number: 1990.6
Wyndham Lewis
Date: 1938
Medium: Double-sided drawing with transparent watercolor wash over graphite and charcoal (recto) and graphite (verso) on paper
Object number: 2004.3a-b
Wyndham Lewis
Date: 1918
Medium: Charcoal, pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache wash on paper
Object number: 1995.73
Dorothy Shakespear
Date: 1937
Medium: Watercolor on paper, mounted on cardboard
Object number: 1996.10
Cecil Beaton
Date: 1944; published 1945
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1982.15
Dorothy Shakespear
Date: c. 1914-19
Medium: Watercolor and graphite on paper
Object number: 1994.200
Karen Hampton
Date: 2015
Medium: Dye-sublimation print on polyester twill over archival inkjet print on silk organza, with hand-stitching
Object number: 2015.4
Silvia Saunders
Date: c. 1930s
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1969.7.7
Silvia Saunders
Date: unknown
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1969.12.4