Little Girl in White (Queenie Burnett)

1907

George Bellows

Painter, American, 1882 - 1925

A young, pale-skinned girl wearing a white dress stands against a darkened background in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces our left in profile, and she clasps her hands in front of her pelvis. Her face turns a bit to us, her chin pulled back so she looks at us with large, black eyes from under her brows. She has a delicate nose, pink lips, and a pointed chin. Her cinnamon-brown hair is pulled halfway up, away from her forehead, and falls down over her shoulders. Her dress has a high collar, a loose bodice, and long sleeves. It is cinched at the waist and falls like a bell to just below her knees. She wears black stockings and shoes. The room in which she stands has a brown floor, and the wall behind her is forest green. The portrait is loosely painted so brushstrokes are visible, especially in the girl’s face and dress.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Advised by his friend and teacher Robert Henri to select subjects that reflected the realism of modern urban life, George Bellows portrayed the recreational activities of New York City’s lower-class children in such paintings as River Rats (1906, private collection), and Forty-two Kids (1907). In 1907 he painted two full-length portraits of individual children: Little Girl in White and Frankie the Organ Boy (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO). Unlike his late 19th-century predecessors, who popularized the street urchin genre by representing well-scrubbed, idealized children playing with pets or engaged in entrepreneurial activities, Bellows portrayed his subjects in a bluntly realistic manner. The subject of this painting, Queenie Burnett, was the artist’s laundry delivery girl. Her underprivileged background is evident in her gaunt face, exaggeratedly large eyes, unkempt hair, and ungainly figure.

This was Bellows’s first figural work to be exhibited around the country—it was included in 15 public exhibitions during his lifetime—and he was awarded the first Hallgarten Prize when the painting was shown at the National Academy of Design in 1913.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 69

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 158 x 87 cm (62 3/16 x 34 1/4 in.)
    framed: 171.5 x 107 x 8.6 cm (67 1/2 x 42 1/8 x 3 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1983.1.2

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Little Girl in White (Queenie Burnett), 1907

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist [1882-1925]; by inheritance to his wife, Emma S. Bellows [1884-1959]; her estate; purchased May 1963 through (H.V. Allison & Co., New York) by Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1983 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1908

  • Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art, The National Arts Club, New York, 1908, no. 56, as The Girl in White.

1909

  • Twenty-Second Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Sculpture by American Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, 1909, no. 23, as Girl in White.

1910

  • One Hundred and Fifth Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1910, no. 601, as Girl in White.

1911

  • Special Exhibition and Sale of Oil Paintings by George Bellows, N.A., Marshall Field & Company, New York, 1911, no. 14, as Girl in White.

  • [George Bellows Exhibition], Madison Gallery, New York, 1911, as Girl in White.

1912

  • Paintings by George Bellows, Art Students League of Columbus, Public Library, Columbus, Ohio, November 1912, no. 19, as The Little Laundry Girl.

  • Paintings by George Bellows, N.A., Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, December 1912, no. 19, as The Little Laundry Girl.

1913

  • Eighty-Eighth Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, March-April 1913, no. 216, repro., as Little Girl.

  • Montclair, 1913 [according to the artist's Record Book].

  • American Artists, Department of Fine Arts, Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, Summer(?) 1913, no. 230, as Little Girl.

  • Seventeenth Annual Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, April-June 1913, no. 22, as Little Girl.

  • Special Exhibition of Paintings by George Bellows, N.A., Detroit Museum of Art, January 1913, no. 19, as The Little Laundry Girl.

  • Paintings by Fine New York Painters, Saint Botolph Club, Boston, November-December 1913, no. 5, as Girl in White.

1914

  • American Fine Art Section, Anglo-American Exposition, London, 1914, no. 170, as Little Girl.

1915

  • A Catalogue of Paintings, Gallery of Fine Arts, Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, 1915, no. 49, as Little Girl in White.

1916

  • "Los Angeles Circuit", 1916 [according to the artist's Record Book].

1962

  • Modern American Painting: 1915, The Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, 1962-1963, no. 1, as Little Girl in White.

1963

  • George Bellows, H.V. Allison & Co., New York, 1963, no. 1, as Girl in White (Queenie Burnett).

1986

  • Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986, unnumbered checklist.

1992

  • The Paintings of George Bellows, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Columbus Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 1992-1993, fig. 10.

2012

  • George Bellows, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012-2013, pl. 12.

2013

  • The Armory Show at 100: Modernism and Revolution, The New-York Historical Society, New York, 2013-2014, not in catalogue.

Bibliography

1929

  • Bellows, Emma Louise Story. The Paintings of George Bellows. New York, 1929: 4, repro.

1965

  • Morgan, Charles H. George Bellows. Painter of America. New York, 1965: 75, 104, 127, 166-168.

1971

  • Braider, Donald. George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting. New York, 1971: 42, 86.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 28, repro.

  • Quick, Michael, Jane Myers, Marianne Doezema, and Franklin Kelly. The Paintings of George Bellows. Exh. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, 1992-1993. New York, 1992: 3, 11, 12, 185, fig. 10.

2009

  • Peck, Glenn C. George Bellows' Catalogue Raisonné. H.V. Allison & Co., 2009. Online resource, URL: http://www.hvallison.com. Accessed 16 August 2016.

2012

  • Brock, Charles, et al. George Bellows. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012-2013. Washington and New York, 2012: 9, 49-50, 133, pl. 12.

Inscriptions

upper center reverse: Geo Bellows / 1947 Bdway / [illegible]49 N.Y. / "QUEEN" / "GIRL IN WHITE"

Wikidata ID

Q20191104

You may be interested in

Loading Results