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Although best known today for his images of American Indians from the 1880’s, during his own lifetime, George de Forest Brush was most revered for his portraiture, particularly the very intimate images of his wife and children.

Brush trained for three years at the National Academy of Design and in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts, studying under Gérome from 1873-1880. Rather than choosing the exotic North African Orientalism then promoted by his mentor, Brush joined his brother in Wyoming and Montana, living in teepees among the ‘noble savages’ and sympathetically documenting a culture that was rapidly disappearing with America’s westward expansion.

By 1890, however, he was married and returned to Paris, continuing on to England, and finally to Florence, with his rapidly growing family. Brush had become intensely interested in the Italian Renaissance masters. Rather than painting the idealized Indian, Brush turned to other subject matter: the idealized mother and child. Using his wife and children as models, he sought to imbue the specific with universal meaning, as had the 15th century Florentine masters. Unlike his Italian predecessors, however, his “Madonna and Child” images were secular (See Morgan, Joan. George de Forest Brush, 1855-1941 : Master of the American Renaissance. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, c1985, pg. 25.)

Brush’s mother and child images paid universal homage to the beauty and procreative powers of women. However, the very close and loving relationships he enjoyed with his own wife, Mittie, and his six daughters and a son, described by his oldest daughter, Nancy, are clearly revealed as well in his attitude toward the subject matter in this group of paintings. (See Bowditch, Nancy Douglas. George de Forest Brush: Recollections of a Joyous Painter. Peterborough, N.H.: Noone House (William L Bauhan), 1970.)

The Brushs’ permanent home, purchased in 1901, was in Dublin, New Hampshire where he was an active participant in the Cornish Colony of artists. Brush joined Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Abbott Thayer, among others, many of whom defined the American Renaissance style at a time when many of their contemporaries were following the more radical styles of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

He also was a highly sought after portraitist for wealthy American patrons. Many of his commissioned works fall into the lucrative tradition of formal portraiture, in which the objective of the artist is to capture the character of the sitter, to depict accoutrements that situate them in a world of social privilege, and perhaps to reveal some of their interests.

Brush returned frequently to Europe, however, particularly to Florence, where he rented villas for his large family, in order to renew his study of the Old Masters. Among other things, Brush made an intense study of the pigments and color theories of the Italian artists he revered. “He believed the Old Masters studied nature closely and learned these color principles from the flowers—so that, for instance, a pink gown on a Madonna would become a delicate yellow in the highlights.” (See Bowditch, op.cit. pg. 80.)

“Portrait of a Young Woman in a Yellow Shawl” does not conform to the above description of a formal portrait. While the features of the sitter are specific, she remains remote and situated within her own realm. The bust-length format, a profile head with slightly turned shoulders, is typical of many Old Master portraits. Here, the yellow shawl is reminiscent of Titian’s series of the Mary Magdalene and Venetian courtesans as it drapes below her shoulders and between her breasts, with but a hint of a white garment below. Most prominent are her beautiful white shoulders and neck. There is an ‘ordered beauty’ in the composition, to use the phrase of art critic Royal Cortissoz, (quoted in Bowditch, op.cit., pg. 205) in describing Brush’s paintings at his first one-man exhibition at the Century Association in March, 1922.)

A close examination of the color of the yellow shawl is revealing: it is comprised of gold, greens, browns and reddish tones, while the white garment has some blue hues. Even what appears to be a rather monochromatic background is composed of green as well as brown, and at the part in her hair there is a streak of purple.

“In 1923, when Brush was 68, he was asked the question, ‘Do you do portraits, Mr. Brush?” ‘I do some portraits,’ he answered, ‘but I do figure pictures. When I do portraits, they’re always pictures suitable for hanging anywhere.’” (Bowditch, op.cit., pg. 207.) With this statement, Brush defined his intent in painting portraits: his pictures were not only specific likenesses of individual people, but meant to make a more universal, aesthetic statement.

“Portrait of a Young Woman in a Yellow Shawl” Is an idealized image of youthful beauty, a reverential presentation of innocent and wholesome sensuality.

During his lifetime, George de Forest Brush enjoyed considerable acclaim, winning several gold medals at International Expositions. He was made an Academician at the National Academy of Design and at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1923, he was given an honorary M.A. degree from Yale University. His paintings hang in dozens of major American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The Butler Institute of American Art, The Addison Gallery of American Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The image is surrounded by an unusual green/brown and gold Newcomb-Macklin frame, with its original paper label attached. It appears to have been designed to compliment the picture. There is no apparent overpaint under UV light and the varnish is fresh.

Research on this painting is ongoing, particularly in an attempt to identify the sitter and secure the date.