National Museum of Women in the Arts
Washington, DC
202-783-5000
http://www.nmwa.org
Amazons in the Drawing Room: The Art of
Romaine Brooks
"Amazons in the Drawing Room:
The Art of Romaine Brooks," the first major retrospective in over 30
years to showcase the work of this American expatriate artist, will be presented
by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) from June 29 to September
24, 2000. In this comprehensive study, Brooks's art will be seen in the
context of her sexuality and identity. Fifty-four works from the Smithsonian
American Art Museum will be combined with 50 paintings, drawings, photographs,
and sketch books, many previously unavailable for viewing, from public and
private collections in France.
Brooks (1874-1970) lived and worked in Paris for most of
her life. She focused on the single human figure, and was called the "Thief
of Souls" by poet and friend Count Robert de Montesquiou because of
her psychologically penetrating portrait style. The exhibition comprises
four main sections: portraits; self-portraits; images of Ida Rubinstein,
Brooks's intimate partner for three years; and drawings.
"Amazons
in the Drawing Room" looks at how Brooks's concern with issues of identity
influenced her art. Three main elements shaped her work: her place in elite
European social circles; her involvement in the homosexual literary and
artistic culture of Paris; and her feelings about her childhood. Her art
is seen as a significant record of early-20th-century European literary
and artistic culture, and provides an important link between portraiture,
the American expatriate experience, and aspects of homosexuality. (left:
La France Croiseée (The Cross of France), 1914, oil
on canvas, 45 3/4 x 33 1/2 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum,Gift
of the artist)
NMWA guest curator and Carleton College Professor Joe Lucchesi
says that Brooks's works are also a visual record of the changing status
of women in society and of how Brooks did not conform to the social order
of the day. Her rebellious nature can be seen in her paintings of nudes,
not traditionally the subject of women artists at that time, and in the
androgynous appearance of some of her portraits.
In the introduction to the exhibition catalogue Lucchesi
writes: "Brought together in the current exhibition, Brooks's art provides
a powerful art historical link between portraiture, the American expatriate
experience, and the "homosexual subject" in early twentieth-century
art which is of interest to artistic, intellectual, and popular audiences
today. My strongest hope is that this exhibition will unveil 
fresh
angles for historical investigations into sexual, gender, and artistic identity
in the early twentieth century, and that it will offer a more nuanced understanding
of Brooks's artistic project--her interests, stylistic range, and thematic
concerns. Finally, because the fixing and unfixing of identity has become
such a pervasive concern in contemporary art, from artists as various as
Cindy Sherman, Catherine Opie, and Matthew Barney (to name only a few),
I also hope that Romaine Brooks's investigations will stimulate a rethinking
of the historical limits and possibilities of such visual negotiations of
identity." (left: Azalees Blanches (White Azaleas), 1910,
oil on canvas, 59 1/2 x 107 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum,Gift
of the artist)
During
her relationship with Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein, Brooks
produced many portraits of her partner. These include La France Croiseée
(The Cross of France, 1914), in which patriotic heroism is portrayed by
a figure cloaked in black bearing the insignia of the Red Cross, and Le
Trajet (The Crossing, 1911), portraying an image of female sexuality
and morbidity. Also included is Ida Rubinstein (1917), in which her
windswept figure, again wrapped in a black cloak, is the image of Brooks's
romantic ideal. (left: Self-Portrait, 1923, oil on canvas,
46 1/4 x 26 7/8 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum,Gift of the artist)
Also concerned with her own image, Brooks produced a number
of works that reflect the continuous searching and exploring of her identity.
In a 1923 self-portrait, she is dressed in stylish masculine attire, complete
with riding hat. In the early 1930s, Brooks turned almost completely away
from painting and toward drawing. These dreamlike line drawings express
themes that she derived from symbolist literature and poetry, and include
the spiritual and metaphysical worlds, the merging of humans and animals,
and the complexities of human relationships. She also explored these themes
in her unpublished autobiography, No Pleasant Memories.
Brooks (née Goddard) was born in Rome in 1874 to
prosperous American parents. In her autobiography, Brooks writes that she
had a difficult childhood. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth,
and at age six Brooks was left with a washerwoman in New York by her mother.
Rescued by her mother's family, she was placed in private schools in the
U.S. and Europe. In 1902, she married John Ellingham Brooks, a British pianist
and homosexual, and adopted the facade of propriety in exchange for a promise
of independence. The marriage lasted a year.
Brooks had her first exhibition in Paris in 1910, where
she was acknowledged as a painter of distinction and commended for paintings
of elegance and subtlety. A 1925 exhibition of her work, on view in Paris,
London, and New York, confirmed Brooks's reputation as an accomplished portrait
painter. By the late 1930s, she had become focused exclusively on her autobiography.
Brooks became increasingly reclusive and retreated to her home in southern
France, where she died in 1970 at the age of 96.
"Amazons in the Drawing Room" is organized by
the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The exhibition is made possible
through the generous support of The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. and the
Gaea Foundation. Additional support is provided by the members of NMWA.
The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has lent 54 artworks to the exhibition
and tour as part of its national collection-sharing program while the museum
building is being renovated.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a 144-page illustrated
catalogue, published by University of California Press and Chameleon Books
of Chesterfield in association with NMWA. It will be available in the museum
shop and by mail order (call 1.800.222.7270). After Washington, the exhibition
will be on display at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific
Film Archives from October 11, 2000 to January 21, 2001.
Read more about the National
Museum of Women in the Arts in Resource
Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national
registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 3/2/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
"Amazons
in the Drawing Room" looks at how Brooks's concern with issues of identity
influenced her art. Three main elements shaped her work: her place in elite
European social circles; her involvement in the homosexual literary and
artistic culture of Paris; and her feelings about her childhood. Her art
is seen as a significant record of early-20th-century European literary
and artistic culture, and provides an important link between portraiture,
the American expatriate experience, and aspects of homosexuality. (left:
La France Croiseée (The Cross of France), 1914, oil
on canvas, 45 3/4 x 33 1/2 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum,Gift
of the artist)
