1912, Kees van Dongen, White Feathers (Plume Blanches) -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: This portrait of an unnamed sitter is exemplary of the imagery that established high demand for Van Dongen, a Dutch portrait painter working in Paris in the years leading up to World War I. The artist depicted young, fashionable women wearing high-necked blouses, pearl necklaces, and elaborately plumed, wide-brimmed hats. The artist traveled to North Africa in 1910 and 1911, and while some of his early paintings treated Black subjects in exotic attire, as well as nude members of the demimonde, this work represents a decisive turn toward portraying members of his elite Parisian clientele. Alain Locke named Van Dongen among the European artists who depicted the "Negro subject" with "singular novelty and beauty."
1912, Kees van Dongen, White Feathers (Plume Blanches) -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: This portrait of an unnamed sitter is exemplary of the imagery that established high demand for Van Dongen, a Dutch portrait painter working in Paris in the years leading up to World War I. The artist depicted young, fashionable women wearing high-necked blouses, pearl necklaces, and elaborately plumed, wide-brimmed hats. The artist traveled to North Africa in 1910 and 1911, and while some of his early paintings treated Black subjects in exotic attire, as well as nude members of the demimonde, this work represents a decisive turn toward portraying members of his elite Parisian clientele. Alain Locke named Van Dongen among the European artists who depicted the "Negro subject" with "singular novelty and beauty."