Thomas Wilmer Dewing

American, 1851 - 1938

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American artist (1851-1938)

Explore Selected Works

Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Lady with a Mask, 1911, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase), 2014.79.16

Lady with a Mask

Thomas Wilmer Dewing · 1911 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.16

Thomas Wilmer Dewing, The Green Dress, c. 1910, pastel on wove paper mounted to composition board, Corcoran Collection (Bequest of James Parmelee), 2015.19.499

The Green Dress

Thomas Wilmer Dewing · c. 1910 · pastel on wove paper mounted to composition board ·  Accession ID  2015.19.499

The head and neck of a girl is drawn with layers of delicate, faint silverpoint lines on vertically oriented, cream-white paper. The girl is angled to our right and looks off in that direction with shaded eyes. She has broad, high cheekbones, a straight nose, and her full lips are closed with a faint suggestion of a smile and a dimple in the cheek we see. Her hair is parted down the middle and pulled loosely back and up. Her shoulders below the neck are sparsely sketched in. The drawing is done with fine, almost ghostly lines, which gives the portrait an ethereal, insubstantial look. The artist signed the drawing in the lower right corner, “T W Dewing.”
Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Head of a Girl, c. 1909, silverpoint on prepared wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Bequest of James Parmelee), 2015.19.498

Head of a Girl

Thomas Wilmer Dewing · c. 1909 · silverpoint on prepared wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.498

A woman sits facing our right in profile, looking through downcast eyes at a lute she holds upright in her lap in this vertical painting. She has smooth, pale skin, and her tawny-brown hair is pulled gathered at the back of her neck. She holds her head high, so she looks down through lowered eyes toward her lap. Her full, pale-pink lips are slightly parted. Her long gown swirls with tones of pine, moss, and sage green with a few strokes of earth brown. Her garment, especially around the neckline, is loosely painted so it is difficult to tell if her decolletage is bare or is covered by a sheer fabric. The sleeve we see is slashed along the elbow so fabric in lighter green shows through. Her dress drapes over her feet, which are cropped by the bottom right corner of the composition. The woman is brightly lit from the upper center, but the bench on which she sits blends into the nearly black background. She braces the neck of the lute where it meets the body with long, delicate fingers, so the instrument stands in her lap with the flat soundboard facing her. The neck tips slightly away from her body, and she rests her right hand, closer to us, on the soundboard with her fingers crooked. The lute is a mahogany brown and has radiating lines that extend from the side closest to us up along the back of the body. The pegboard at the top of the neck is barely cropped by the right edge of the composition. The lute is finely detailed, which contrasts with the loose brushwork of the woman’s dress. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “TW Dewing 86.”
Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Lady with a Lute, 1886, oil on wood, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Walter Timme, 1978.60.1

Lady with a Lute

Thomas Wilmer Dewing · 1886 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1978.60.1

Bibliography

1895

  • Cortissoz, Royal. "Some Imaginative Types in American Art." Harper's New Monthly Magazine 91 (July 1895): 165-179.

1908

  • Caffin, Charles H. "The Art of Thomas W. Dewing." Harper's Monthly Magazine 116 (April 1908): 714-724.

1914

  • Tharp, Ezra. "T. W. Dewing." Art and Progress 5 (March 1914): 155-161.

1929

  • White, Nelson C. "The Art of Thomas Dewing." Art and Archaeology 27 (June 1929): 253-261.

1981

  • Hobbs, Susan. "Thomas Wilmer Dewing: The Early Years, 1851-1885." The American Art Journal 13 (Spring 1981): 4-35.

1985

  • Hobbs, Susan. "Thomas Dewing in Cornish, 1885-1905." The American Art Journal 17 (Spring 1985): 3-32.

1996

  • Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 127.