A Young Girl (Daughter of Walter S. Martin)

Artist Susan Watkins (American, 1875 - 1913)

CultureAmerican

Date1910

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions44 1/2 × 35 in. (113 × 88.9 cm)
Overall, Frame: 54 3/8 × 44 1/4 × 4 1/2 in. (138.1 × 112.4 × 11.4 cm)

InscribedSigned upper right and dated "`10".

Credit LineBequest of Goldsborough Serpell

Object number46.76.135

Not on view

DescriptionThis painting depicts a young girl with a blue bow in her hair, wearing a white dress with blue/black sash, seated on the arm of a chair that is covered in flowered upholstery. Her feet, with white socks and black strapped shoes, and visible and barely touch the floor. She looks straight ahead, past the viewer.

Label TextSusan Watkins American (1875-1913) A Young Girl (Daughter of Walter S. Martin), 1910 Oil on canvas Goldsborough Serpell Bequest 46.76.135 By the end of her stay in Paris, Watkins was widely admired for her sensitive portrayals of women and adolescent girls. A Young Girl, her final portrait, depicts the daughter of Walter S. Martin of California (and granddaughter of Senator William A. Clark of Montana) posing informally on the arm of a chair. Both the unusual, asymmetrical composition-with the girl placed at left and the "void" of the empty chair taking center stage-and the sitter's precarious perch imply impermanence and instability, as though the subject might decide at any moment that the sitting is over and playfully bolt from the room. Watkins' image of early twentieth-century childhood seems surprisingly modern, especially when compared to the decorous and conventional 1830 Girl (at far right), painted only ten years before. The informal composition and the chair's vigorously painted floral print suggest new aesthetic directions for the thirty-five-year-old artist. In fact, the painting would be one of her last. ProvenanceThe artist, Susan Watkins Serpell, bequeathed to her husband, Goldsborough Serpell, 1913; Bequest of Goldsborough Serpell to the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1946; Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences transferred to the Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition History"Between Continents and Centuries: Susan Watkins, An American Artists Rediscovered," The Chrysler Museum at Seaboard Center, norfolk, Va, December 16, 1985 to February 7, 1986. "The Gentle Modernist: The Art of Susan Watkins," Waitzer Community Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., May 15, 2002 - March 2003. "Impressions: Americans in France, 1860 - 1930," Naples Museum of Art, Naples, Florida, January 18 - May 13, 2007. "Women of the Chrysler: a 400-Year Celebration of the Arts," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., March 24 - July 18, 2010. Published ReferencesJeff Harrison, "The Art of Susan Watkins, 1875-1913," _American Art Review_ XV, No. 1(February 2003): 149. William H. Gerdts and Daved F. Setford, _Impressions: Americans in France, 1860-1930 and Claude Monet: Giverny and the North of France_, exh. cat., Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL., 2007, 19-20, 67 & 69. ISBN: 0-9773018-5-0