Romaine Brooks, Ida Rubinstein, 1917, Oil on Canvas, Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
This exhibition The Art of Romaine Brooks, on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, brings together 18 paintings and 32 drawings by the American expatriate artist Romaine Brooks (1874-1970), a number of which have not been seen for decades. An extraordinarily independent woman, Brooks crafted an androgynous appearance and a unique artistic voice that challenged conventions of how women should look and behave; her rebellious ideas extend to many of the portraits she painted in the 1920s and underline the alluring modernity of her best-known works. Early in her career, Brooks adopted a muted color palette consisting primarily of black, white and various subtle shades of gray, ochre, umber, or red, strongly reminiscent of fellow American expatriate master, James McNeill Whistler, whose paintings she admired.
Thank you to our exhibition sponsors:
The Muses
Linda Rich
Cheryl Philpot Chase
Malena Puterbaugh
Maria Saterbo
Sheryll Strang
Deanna Rhodes Tanner
Cornelia Waters
Buffy Wilson
Kathy Abels
Lynda Buck
Jean Bunch
Connie Durrence
Anne Furr
Dorothy Jenkins
Alice Koehler
Karen Kovach
E. Beatty Raymond
