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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: The Corporation of Yaddo
Katrina Nichols Trask, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.56). Installation at Yaddo
Installation at Yaddo
Photo: The Corporation of Yaddo
Katrina Nichols Trask, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.56). Frame
Frame
Photo: Patricia Hills
Katrina Nichols Trask, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.56). Detail
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Katrina Nichols Trask, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.56). Detail
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Katrina Nichols Trask, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.56). Inscription
Inscription
Photo: Patricia Hills
31.3 U.S. Portraits, Women

Johnson’s paintings of women are often his best portraits, exhibiting a range of techniques and emphasizing their intelligent faces even when enwrapped in sumptuous fabrics, such as we see in Edwina Booth. —PH

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Hills no. 31.3.56
Katrina Nichols Trask
Corporation of Yaddo title: Katrina Trask
Alternate title: Mrs. Spencer Trask
1887
Oil on canvas
75 x 49 in. (190.5 x 124.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson/1887 [As in other Johnson paintings of the 1880s and 1890s, the "8"s have a flat top]
Description / Remarks

Paul Eugene Sigrist, Jr., The Yaddo Collection, 1985: "Katrina, wearing a white dress, strikes an aloof pose."

Provenance
Likely Spencer and Katrina Trask, c. 1887 (by commission)
The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York
Exhibitions
1895 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, Loan Exhibition of Portraits for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital, October 13–December 7, 1895. (NAD 1895), no. 175, as Mrs. Spencer Trask, lent by Spencer Trask, Esq.
References
NAD 1895
Loan Exhibition of Portraits for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital. New York: National Academy of Design, 1895. Exhibition catalogue (1895 NAD), p. 33, no. 175, as Mrs. Spencer Trask, lent by Spencer Trask, Esq.
New-York Daily Tribune 1895
"Portraits by the Score: Second Annual Loan Exhibition Opens this Afternoon. List of Some of the More Notable Ones to be Shown at the National Academy for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopedic Hospital." New-York Daily Tribune (New York), October 30, 1895, "Conspicuous in the East Room…are also the full-length portrait of Mrs. Spencer Trask, by Eastman Johnson, Mrs. Daniel Chauncey, by Benjamin Constant, Miss Helen Dunham, by Sargent, and Mrs. Frank Lawrence [sic] and Lady Vernon, by Eastman Johnson".
Sigrist 1985
Sigrist, Paul Eugene, Jr. The Yaddo Collection. [Saratoga Springs, NY]: [publisher unknown], 1985.
McGee 2008
McGee, Micki, ed. Yaddo: Making American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 123.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 2018-06-25
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Trask, Katrina Nichols (Mrs. Spencer Trask)
Biography:

Katrina (Kate) Nichols Trask (1853–1922). Daughter of George Livingston Nichols and Christina Marie Cole. Wife of Spencer Trask, with whom she founded the artists’ retreat Yaddo; mother of Spencer, Jr. and Christina. All were portrayed by Johnson.

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Trask, Katrina Nichols (Mrs. Spencer Trask)
Keywords
Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Katrina Nichols Trask, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.56)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1156 (accessed on April 29, 2024).