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⊠45.3 U.S. Later Portrait Drawings, Women
When Johnson returned from Europe late in 1855 and moved in with his family in Washington, D.C., he began receiving portrait commissions. On his trip to Superior, Michigan, in 1856 and 1857, he did charcoal portrait drawings of family and friends. Like the commissioned drawings done earlier, Johnson generally used charcoal (named in some records as black chalk) with touches of white, but the strong chiaroscuro is less evident for his women sitters. Many of these portraits are in pastel, which creates a softer visage. In his later professional years as a painter of oil portraits there are few portraits of women. His art commanded high prices; perhaps families were then reluctant to include their women members as portrait sitters. —PH
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Hills no. 45.3.4
Baur no. 306
Dorothea Lynde Dix
Harvard Art Museums title: Portrait Study of Mrs. Dix
Alternate titles: Dorothea Dix; Mrs. Dix; Portrait of Mrs. Dix
c.1870–81
Graphite on gray wove paper
4 3/4 x 4 in. (12.1 x 10.2 cm) (irreg.)
Inscribed lower center in graphite, in Johnson's hand: Mrs. Dix; lower right in graphite: 10"; inscribed on verso in graphite: E. Johnson / [R-- (likely Rosenthal) Col.?]; 25 [in circle]
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Labels
Label removed from backing, now in curatorial file, paper: May–July 1980, NPG American Portrait Drawings exhibition
Exhibitions
Kennedy Galleries, New York, Charcoal Drawings of Eminent Americans by Eastman Johnson, June 1920. (Exhibition catalogue: Kennedy Galleries 1920), no. 10
.
M. Knoedler & Co, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson, January 7–26, 1946. (Exhibition catalogue: M. Knoedler & Co. 1946), no. 38, as
Mrs. Dix. Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., American Portrait Drawings, May 1–August 3, 1980. (Sadik and Pfister 1980).
References
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York:
Kennedy Galleries,
1920.
Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 5, no. 10, as
Dorothea Lynde Dix.
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY:
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences,
1940.
Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 74, no. 306, as
Mrs. Dix.
Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York:
M. Knoedler & Co.,
1946.
Exhibition catalogue (1946 M. Knoedler & Co.), n.p., no. 38, as
Mrs. Dix.
Sadik, Marvin, and Harold Pfister. American Portrait Drawings. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution Press,
1980.
Exhibition catalogue (1980 National Portrait Gallery), pp. 70, 75, illus.
Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): July 28, 2010; August ?
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Dix, Dorothea Lynde
Biography: Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802–1887). Social reformer; advocate for mental health and prison reform. During the Civil War, she recruited nurses to the Union Army.
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
Keywords
- Portrait pose:
- Occupations:
Record last updated March 28, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Dorothea Lynde Dix, c.1870–81 (Hills no. 45.3.4)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=942 (accessed on October 12, 2024).
