Lilian Westcott Hale
Today we start our new special month with the North Carolina Museum of Art. It means that for the next four Sundays we will present masterpieces from their collection. : ) Enjoy!
Lilian Westcott Hale enjoyed a national reputation for her portraits and domestic scenes, painted in a carefully drawn, politely Impressionist style. Like Mary Cassatt and other female artists of her day, Hale devoted much of her attention to the sheltered world of women, especially girls. Alice (Sit-by-the-Fire) offers a moment of introspection, the silence accented by the soft lighting and muted tones of the artist’s palette. The artist also bathes the scene in warm nostalgia for a simpler time—note the Colonial-period interior, which is actually the artist’s studio in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Her work consists of charcoals as well as paintings, and her subjects included still lifes and landscapes, but she is perhaps best known for her portraiture. Her work is associated with the Boston School of American Impressionism.
If you would like to learn more about women artists, please check our Women Artists Notebook. : )
P.S. Throughout art history, domestic life has been a fundamental source of inspiration for artists. Here are some paintings that portray and were inspired by domesticity.