JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH (American 1863 - 1935) The

JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH (American 1863 - 1935)
The Then Lover
Mixed-media on board
21.5 x 15.5 in.
Signed lower right
One of the famed Red Rose Girls of the Brandywine School of American Painting, Jesse Willcox Smith may have come late to art -- she was already 20 by the time she first picked up a brush, but she more than made up for it once she found her voice. Illustration work was never in short supply for Smith, but it was after studying with Howard Pyle at Drexel University in the late 1800s that she became one of the foremost artists of the day, painting classic portraits for a variety of important magazines, most notably St. Nicholas, Scribner's, The Ladies' Home Journal, Collier's Weekly, Harper's and Century.

Her sensitive portraits of "perfect" children set the standard in commercial art. The Then Lover is a tour de force of Smiths mastery over style, substance, mood and color, as embodied by her favorite subject, a pristine young girl, as she shares a reflective moment with a doll. The image is classic Willcox Smith, and a testament to the enduring beauty of the halcyon images of Golden Age American innocence she is so famous for. This is great American art no matter how its classified - as Illustration Art, Fine Art or portraiture - and be fully at home in most any museum collection.

Condition Report: This piece has been framed to an overall size of 29 x 23 in., and the art is in Excellent condition.

Shipping: Framed - with Glass, Medium (view shipping information)

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Lot: 87057

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