Romaine Brooks, Azalées Blanches (White Azaleas), 1910, oil on canvas, 59 1⁄2 x 107 in. (151.1 x 271.7 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1966.49.5
Copied
Artwork Details
- Title
- Azalées Blanches (White Azaleas)
- Artist
- Date
- 1910
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 59 1⁄2 x 107 in. (151.1 x 271.7 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of the artist
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Object — flower — azalea
- Figure female — nude
- Architecture Interior — domestic — house
- Figure female — full length
- Object Number
- 1966.49.5
Artwork Description
Azalées Blanches was one of Brooks's first paintings of the female nude and the earliest in which she presented an openly erotic figure. The female nude was a ubiquitous subject for Brooks's male contemporaries, but in 1910 a female artist's depiction of the theme was relatively unusual. Brooks's inclusion of this frankly sexual work in her debut exhibition at Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris was a provocative gesture. Referring to this moment in her unpublished memoir, Brooks wrote, "I grasped every occasion no matter how small, to assert my independence of views." Audience members also recognized Brooks's challenge; a reviewer compared it to Édouard Manet's iconic modern nude Olympia (1863).
The Art of Romaine Brooks, 2016