The Wall Flower, Portrait of Barbara Whitney, 1913
Bronze
20 ¼ x 4 ½ x 5 in
Biography
The daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gertrude Whitney was an early 20th century sculptor in New York, where she was raised. Rather than having a reputation as an artist herself, she was better known as the heiress to her family fortune, a patroness of the arts, and the founder of The Whitney Museum.
Although the Museum focuses on avant-garde work, she was anti-modernist in her sculpture. Like many who studied at the Art Students League and were influenced by Robert Henri, her style was post-Ashcan realism.
She began sculpting at age twenty five after marrying Harry Payne Whitney. She studied at the Art Students League with James Earle Fraser and Hendrik Anderson. She also worked in Paris with Andrew O'Connor and Auguste Rodin. She first exhibited at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, and in 1907 opened a studio in Greenwich Village. She exhibited work by many of her struggling contemporaries. She also became a noted collector, beginning with the purchase of four paintings from the "Eight American Painters" 1908 exhibit at the Macbeth Gallery. It was this collection that in 1931 evolved into the Whitney Museum of American Art, a result of her being turned down by the Metropolitan Museum to build a wing for them to house her collection.
