Peter depicts British painter Hannah Gluckstein, heir to a catering empire who adopted the genderless professional name Gluck in the early 1920s. By the time Brooks met her at one of Natalie Barney’s literary salons, Gluckstein had begun using the name Peyter (Peter) Gluck. She unapologetically wore men’s suits and fedoras, clearly asserting the association between androgyny and lesbian identity. Brooks’s carefully nuanced palette and quiet, empty space produced an image of refined and austere modernity. ~ The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016
Romaine Brooks ~ Le Trajet (The Path, The Crossing, aka The Dead Woman), ca. 1911, oil on canvas (Model: Ida Rubinstein) | SAAM-1968.18.3_1
Brooks painted Ida Rubinstein more often than any other subject; for Brooks, Rubinstein’s “fragile and androgynous beauty”represented an aesthetic ideal. The earliest of these paintings are a series of allegorical nudes. In The Crossing (also exhibited as The Dead Woman), Rubinstein appears to be in a coma, stretched out on a white bed or bier against a black void variously interpreted as death or floating in spent sexual satisfaction on Brooks’ symbolic wing. (x)
In 1910, Brooks had her first solo show at the Gallery Durand-Ruel, displaying thirteen paintings, almost all of women or young girls. Among them, Brooks included two nude studies: The Red Jacket, and White Azaleas, a nude study of a woman reclining on a couch. Contemporary reviews compared it to Francisco de Goya’s La maja desnuda and Édouard Manet’s Olympia. But, unlike the women in those paintings, the subject of White Azaleas looks away from the viewer; in the background above her is a series of Japanese prints. (x)
Romaine Brooks ~ Weeping Venus, 1917 . Oil on canvas. Musées de Poitiers | src Frieze from Palazzo Fortuny’s winter exhibition, ‘Romaine Brooks: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs’Photograph of nude taken or commissioned by Romaine Brooks (undated) | src Arte senza confini : Romaine Brooks. Dipinti, disegni, fotografie
Romaine Brooks remained aloof from all artistic trends, painting, in her palette of black, white, and grays, haunting portraits of the blessed and the troubled, of socialites and intellectuals. She moved in brilliant circles and, while resisting companionship, was the object of violent passions. […] Her story and her work reveal much about bohemian life in the early twentieth century.
Elizabeth Chew Women Artists at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (x)
Describing herself as a lapidée (literally: a victim of stoning, an outsider), at the height of her career Brooks was prominent in the intellectual and cosmopolitan community that moved between Capri, Paris and London in the early 1900s. Brook’s best known images depict androgynous women in desolate landscapes or monochromatic interiors, their protagonists undeterred by our presence, either staring relentlessly at us or gazing nonchalantly past. Her subjects of this time include anonymous models, aristocrats, lovers and friends, all portrayed in her signature ashen palette. Rejecting contemporary artistic trends such as cubism and fauvism, Brooks favoured the symbolist and aesthetic movements of the 19th century, particularly the work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Her ability to capture the expression, glance or gaze of her sitters prompted critic Robert de Montesquiou to describe her, in 1912, as ‘the thief of souls’. quoted from Frieze
Beatrice Romaine Goddard (1874-1970), known as Romaine Brooks ~ Au bord de la mer (At the seaside), 1914. Oil on canvas. | Franco-American museum of the Blérancourt castle via wikimedia commonsBeatrice Romaine Goddard (1874-1970), known as Romaine Brooks ~ Au bord de la mer (Autoportrait), 1914. Oil on canvas.Romaine Brooks ~ Peter (A Young English Girl), 1923-1924, oil on canvas SAAM-1970.70_2
Peter depicts British painter Hannah Gluckstein, heir to a catering empire who adopted the genderless professional name Gluck in the early 1920s. By the time Brooks met her at one of Natalie Barney’s literary salons, Gluckstein had begun using the name Peyter (Peter) Gluck. She unapologetically wore men’s suits and fedoras, clearly asserting the association between androgyny and lesbian identity. Brooks’s carefully nuanced palette and quiet, empty space produced an image of refined and austere modernity. ~ The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016
With this self-portrait, Brooks envisioned her modernity as an artist and a person. The modulated shades of gray, stylized forms, and psychological gravity exemplify her deep commitment to aesthetic principles. The shaded, direct gaze conveys a commanding and confident presence, an attitude more typically associated with her male counterparts. The riding hat and coat and masculine tailoring recall conventions of aristocratic portraiture while also evoking a chic androgyny associated with the post–World War I “new woman.” Brooks’s fashion choices also enabled upper-class lesbians to identify and acknowledge one another. ~ The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016
Romaine Brooks ~ Una, Lady Troubridge, 1924, oil on canvas SAAM-1966.49.6_2
Una Troubridge was a British aristocrat, literary translator, and the lover of Radclyffe Hall, author of the 1928 pathbreaking lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness. Troubridge appears with a sense of formality and importance typical of upper-class portraiture, but with the sitter’s prized dachshunds in place of the traditional hunting dog. Troubridge’s impeccably tailored clothing, cravat, and bobbed hair convey the fashionable and daring androgyny associated with the so-called new woman. Her monocle suggested multiple symbolic associations to contemporary British audiences: it alluded to Troubridge’s upper-class status, her Englishness, her sense of rebellion, and possibly her lesbian identity. ~ The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016
Romaine Brooks ~ La France Croisée, 1914, oil on canvas SAAM-1970.69_2
In La France Croisée, Brooks voiced her opposition to World War I and raised money for the Red Cross and French relief organizations. Ida Rubinstein was the model for this heroic figure posed in a nurse’s uniform, with cross emblazoned against her dark cloak, against a windswept landscape outside the burning city of Ypres. This symbolic portrait of a valiant France was exhibited in 1915 at the Bernheim Gallery in Paris, along with four accompanying sonnets written by Gabriele D’Annunzio. The gallery offered reproductions for sale as a benefit to the Red Cross. For her contributions to the war effort, the French government awarded Brooks the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1920. This award is visible as the bright red spot on Brooks’s lapel in her 1923 Self-Portrait. ~ The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016
Brooks met Russian dancer and arts patron Ida Rubinstein in Paris after Rubinstein’s first performance as the title character in Gabriele D’Annunzio’s play The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. Rubinstein was already well known for her refined beauty and expressive gestures; she secured her reputation as a daring performer by starring as the male saint in this boundary-pushing show that combined religious history, androgyny, and erotic narrative. Brooks found her ideal — and her artistic inspiration — in the tall, lithe, sensuous Rubinstein, who modeled for many sketches, paintings, and photographs Brooks produced during their relationship, from 1911 to 1914. In her autobiographical manuscript, “No Pleasant Memories,” Brooks said the inspiration for this portrait came as the two women walked through the Bois de Boulogne on a cold winter morning. ~ The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016
All quotations and images (except n. 1 & 2) are from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (x)
un regard oblique 