Helena de Kay Gilder

1911

Not on view

This tender and introspective late work by Cecilia Beaux—the most celebrated turn-of-the-20th-century woman painter of figures and portraits working in the U.S.—has dual importance due to both the painter and sitter. The intimate portrait depicts Beaux’s close friend, mentor, artist, and New York cultural tastemaker Helena de Kay Gilder (1848-1916), in mourning for her recently deceased husband, the progressive cultural leader, editor, and poet, Richard Watson Gilder. Beaux painted de Kay Gilder wearing a shoulder-length widow’s veil and holding a shoot of geranium ivy, a symbol of bridal favor and fidelity in the Victorian language of flowers. Beaux inscribed the painting to Rosamond Gilder, the couple's youngest daughter, who at the time was in the process of publishing her father's letters. Full of feeling, the work reveals the artist’s growing sensitivity to more experimental compositions—as suggested by the abstract backdrop for the figure and the delicate play of dark tones and diffused light emanating from the window at right.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Helena de Kay Gilder
Artist: Cecilia Beaux (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1855–1942 Gloucester, Massachusetts)
Date: 1911
Culture: American
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 31 × 21 in. (78.7 × 53.3 cm)
Credit Line: Purchase, Marguerite and Frank A. Cosgrove Jr. Fund and Jonathan L. Cohen Gift, 2019
Object Number: 2019.152
Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

By Cecilia Beaux

In the same medium

From the same time and place

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Richard Watson Gilder, Helena de Kay Gilder, and Rodman de Kay Gilder, Augustus Saint-Gaudens American, Plaster, American — Richard Watson Gilder, Helena de Kay Gilder, and Rodman de Kay Gilder
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
modeled 1879, cast ca. 1883–84

The Century Magazine, "The Atlantic Fleet in the Spanish War", April 1899, Cecilia Beaux American, Commercial relief process and letterpress — The Century Magazine, "The Atlantic Fleet in the Spanish War", April 1899
Cecilia Beaux
The Century Company
1899

Ernesta, Cecilia Beaux American, Oil on canvas, American — Ernesta
Cecilia Beaux
1914

Mr. and Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes, Cecilia Beaux American, Oil on canvas, American — Mr. and Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes
Cecilia Beaux
1898

Charles Townsend Ludington, Cecilia Beaux American, Oil on canvas — Charles Townsend Ludington
Cecilia Beaux
1900

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