Nancy, the Artist's Daughter [Mrs. Robert Pearmain]

Artist George de Forest Brush (American, 1855 - 1941)

Datec.1915

MediumOil on wood panel

DimensionsFrame Dimension: 37 × 28 × 1/4 in. (94 × 71.1 × 0.6 cm)

ClassificationsOil Painting

Credit LineJohn Butler Talcott Fund and Mrs. H. Bowditch

Terms

Object number1947.01

DescriptionThe Artist's Daughter is a portrait of Nancy, the eldest of the Brushs' six daughters. The portrait originally was to have depicted Mrs. Walter B. James, the wife of a prominent New York physician. However, when the James family objected to the substitution of an entirely different dress for the one intended, Brush recovered the work and painted his daughter Nancy's face in place of Mrs. James's.1 The shoulders and square neckline of the original portrait are still visible.
The Italian Renaissance gown may have been inspired by a collection of costume plates that Brush brought back from Paris. His skill as a draftsman is especially evident in the sleeves. A preliminary drawing for the sleeve (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) shows the exquisite cascading folds of fabric.
Brush put considerable time into the treatment of drapery. When drawing folds, he referred to an armature of wood and wire with cloth draped over it that he kept in his studio.2 He made preparatory studies of elaborate draperies as well as of hands and heads. The draftsmanship skills that Brush had learned at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts guided him throughout his career.
Brush worked to make colors glow in his paintings. He tested different color schemes and used flowers like zinnias as models to match shades in the velvets he bought, particularly the deep orange and red tones. When he painted on panel, as in the New Britain portrait, he used well-seasoned wood, braced on the back to prevent warping. He worked in tempera or in oil and used underpainting in green or red, some of which is visible in this painting.3
Nancy, who was born in Paris on July 4, 1890, was a favorite model for her father, and he included her as a young child in several of the mother and child groupings for which he is famous. This portrait is a "superb likeness" of Nancy with her shiny brown hair, gentle eyes, and delicate mouth.4 In 1909, when she was nineteen, she married Brush's student Robert Pearmain, who died of leukemia in 1912. The couple had a daughter, Mary Alice Pearmain, who was born in 1911. In 1916 Nancy married Dr. Harold Bowditch of Boston, a widower with two young children. Nancy was herself an accomplished painter with a lifelong interest in the theater. She published several plays as well as a biography of her father and was also a designer of costumes and sets. She died in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1979.

JBM

Bibliography:
Nancy Douglas Bowditch, George de Forest Brush: Recollections of a Joyous Painter (Peterborough, N.H.: William L. Bauhan, 1970); Joan B. Morgan, George de Forest Brush, 1855-1941: Master of the American Renaissance, exhib. cat. (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1985).

Notes:
1. Nancy Douglas Bowditch Papers, ca. 1900s-1970s, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. In a letter dated January 5, 1913, that the artist sent to Nancy from "Vilino Sans Souci, 68 Poggia Imperiali, Florence" he wrote, "The picture referred to was the portrait of Mrs. James which I painted your head onto. I thought you would surely understand." Because the date of this letter has been changed by hand to 1914, a dating of about 1915 for the painting is generally accepted . A postcard sent to the New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA files) by Nancy Douglas Bowditch on February 16, 1973, states: "About the painting of me by my father, I am surprised that it is not dated. He usually dated pictures. I don't know exactly when I sat for the ill-fated portrait--but it was approximately 1915, I think."
2. Bowditch, George de Forest Brush, p. 79.
3. Brush's painting method is outlined in ibid., pp. 80-81.
4. Nelson C. White to Charles Ferguson, March 11, 1969, NBMAA files. On page two of his letter, White, who knew Nancy Bowditch personally, describes the portrait: "It is, by the way, a superb likeness of her as well as a fine example of Brush." In a 1909 wedding photograph, Nancy and her husband, Robert Pearmain, stand beside Brush and his son Gerome. The likeness of the portrait to Nancy can be seen in this photograph (Bowditch, George de Forest Brush, fig. 32).

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