Artist Quotation
"The artist is an active dreamer; his dreams are ever seeking their affinity to the outer world."—Romaine Brooks
Artist Romaine Brooks had reason to dream, considering her sad youth. The daughter of a wealthy, unbalanced woman estranged from her husband before Romaine's birth, she had a miserable and unstable childhood. An insane older brother received their mother's love and attention, leaving Romaine scarred from lack of affection and acceptance. Inheritance of the huge family fortune in 1902 granted her independence, but she remained enslaved by memories of her mother's cruelty. The money allowed her to pursue her desire to become an artist. She studied in Rome, meeting an avant-garde group of artists, writers, and intellectuals with whom she associated in Capri, Paris, and the French Riviera.
Brooks remained aloof from all artistic trends, painting, in her palette of black, white, and grays, haunting portraits of the blessed and the troubled, of socialites and intellectuals.
Source: Elizabeth Chew. Women Artists (brochure, Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution).
Pictured: Romaine Brooks, 1874 Italy–1970 France, Jeune Fille Anglaise—Yeux et Rubans Verts, about 1910, oil, 36 1/8 x 28 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.
"The artist is an active dreamer; his dreams are ever seeking their affinity to the outer world."—Romaine Brooks
Artist Romaine Brooks had reason to dream, considering her sad youth. The daughter of a wealthy, unbalanced woman estranged from her husband before Romaine's birth, she had a miserable and unstable childhood. An insane older brother received their mother's love and attention, leaving Romaine scarred from lack of affection and acceptance. Inheritance of the huge family fortune in 1902 granted her independence, but she remained enslaved by memories of her mother's cruelty. The money allowed her to pursue her desire to become an artist. She studied in Rome, meeting an avant-garde group of artists, writers, and intellectuals with whom she associated in Capri, Paris, and the French Riviera.