Provenance

John Hay Whitney

American, 1904 - 1982

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See all 17 works of art
We look slightly down onto a stage, at a woman who dances at the center of this square painting. The pale, white skin on her face is tinged with slate-blue shadows and heightened noticeably with pink blush at the cheekbones. She wears crimson-red lipstick and her dark brown eyebrows are peaked over blue eyes. Two flaring pink flowers, each about the size of the woman’s face, are pinned in the woman’s flame-red hair. The black bodice of her dress has puffed, elbow-length sleeves and a low-cut square neckline. The lime-green skirt flares around her dancing feet to billow up and reveal layers of bubblegum pink underneath. Her body is angled to our left as she points her left, black-stockinged foot and holds her arms by her sides. Behind her, thirteen people dressed in sapphire-blue, ocean-green, and black costumes suggest a royal court, including a dark-haired man who wears a brick-red bolero style suit. He stands near the woman to our right, watching her dance.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in "Chilpéric", 1895-1896, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1990.127.1

Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in "Chilpéric"

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 1895-1896 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1990.127.1

Shown from the chest up, a man with short, orange hair and green-tinted, pale skin looks at us, wearing a vivid blue painter's smock in this vertical portrait painting. His smock and the background are painted with long, mostly parallel strokes of cobalt, azure, and lapis blue. His shoulders are angled to our left, and he looks at us from the corners of his blue eyes. He has a long, slightly bumped nose, and his lips are closed within a full, rust-orange beard. He holds a palette and paintbrushes in his left hand, in the lower left corner of the canvas. The background is painted with long brushstrokes that follow the contours of his head and torso to create an aura-like effect.
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1998.74.5

Self-Portrait

Vincent van Gogh · 1889 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1998.74.5

We look across river at a bridge with a city skyline beyond in this stylized, horizontal landscape, which is painted entirely with broad, visible brushstrokes in vivid, saturated colors. The river spans nearly the width of the canvas, and the riverbank is lined to our left with a row of several buildings between us and the bridge. Those buildings are outlined with royal blue and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in coral pink, mint green, tangerine orange, and pinkish tan. Letters across the top of the building farthest from us reads “BREVER.” Eight boats are tied up at the foot of the buildings. The pointed hulls of three extend into the scene from the lower left corner, painted in marigold orange and outlined in cobalt blue. Five more boats, with rounded prows and hulls and painted with lapis blue and muted aqua, line up like a row of empty shoes. The bridge runs from behind the tallest building to our left across and off the canvas, and is painted with deep lapis blue with crimson-red Xes crisscrossing the span to suggest trestles. The front faces of the pilings below are also highlighted with red. The river fills most of the bottom half of the painting. The water to our left is painted as a field of coral pink with a few, short horizontal baby and cobalt-blue strokes, suggesting reflections of the boats and a bridge piling. A narrow band of kiwi green and sky blue lines the pink field to our right. Next to it, the water is painted as short, horizontal, disconnected strokes and dots mostly in bumblebee yellow with some strokes in bubblegum pink and pale burnt orange, all against the off white of the canvas below. The final zone, to our right, is more densely painted with short dashes in indigo, turquoise, and aqua blue. Beyond the bridge, the skyline is painted in silhouette with spiky spires to our left in mint green and a mass of shorter buildings in periwinkle blue to our right. Four clouds of pale yellow billow off the bridge in front of the skyline. The sky above is painted with short and long vertical strokes of butter yellow, rose pink, pale orange, and a few areas of watermelon pink. The artist signed the work with cobalt-blue paint near the lower left corner: “a derain.”
André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.3

Charing Cross Bridge, London

André Derain · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.3

Shown from the waist up, a woman with a crimson-red face, dark brown eyes, and a black and white garment faces and looks out at us in this stylized, vertical portrait painting. Her face is painted as a flat field of vibrant red outlined with teal green. Her features are outlined in black, and her closed lips are light gray. Her hair is pulled back under a black head covering that falls over her shoulders. The headdress seems to be layered with a headband with bright yellow polka dots against spring green. Her dress is painted with thick, charcoal-gray lines and circles against a white background. The brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially on the garment. In the background behind her, a field of ivory white is contained within bands of steel gray above, along the top edge of the canvas, and below, behind her shoulders. Beyond her body, in the lower left corner, is a patch of sky blue.
Kees van Dongen, Saida, 1913 or 1920, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1998.74.2

Saida

Kees van Dongen · 1913 or 1920 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1998.74.2

A light-skinned man and woman and a collie dog are outside a white house at the edge of a pale peach field of grass in this horizontal painting. Taking up a bit more than the top right quadrant of the composition, the house is white with pale blue shadows. Near the back, left corner of the house, the door has two tall, inset frosted glass panels and a shallow roof supported with scrolling, carved corbels. The door is flanked by a bay window on the left and a single window on the right. A shadowy grove of blue-green trees grows to the left of the house with one branch reaching toward the bay window. The woman faces us and stands between the bay window and door with downcast eyes and folded arms. Her blond hair is pulled or brushed back, and she wears a snug fitting, calf-length teal-blue dress. The man sits on the doorstep so his knees are angled to our left. His near arm drapes over his left knee and his far hand reaches toward the dog, his fingers and thumb touching. He has short blond hair and a ruddy face, and he wears a white t-shirt and olive-green pants. The dog stands in the middle of the field with its body angled to our right, its pointed ears and tail pricked up as it swivels its head to look to our left. It has an auburn-brown coat with white belly, chest, and tip of the tail. There are a few areas of spearmint green in the otherwise peach-colored grass, which is tall enough to brush the belly of the dog. The artist signed the lower right, “EDWARD HOPPER.”
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Evening, 1939, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.6

Cape Cod Evening

Edward Hopper · 1939 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.6

Posters fill a billboard-like wall that stretches across most of the horizontal composition in this loosely painted scene. Two red-and-white striped tents with rounded tops are in the lower left quadrant of the composition. One person, perhaps a woman wearing a hat and a white dress, stands in blue shadow near one of the tents, and four others stroll across the golden-tan walkway to the right. One pedestrian wears a white dress and carries a white parasol. A man and woman wear russet brown, and the person next to the woman in white wears black. The posters are painted in tones of canary yellow, lapis blue, and red with a few touches of cool green and white. The posters, tents, and the people’s bodies are outlined in cobalt blue. Two rooflines to the left and some vertical strokes in turquoise green, light pink, and pale yellow suggest buildings stretching into the distance. A banner flies from the top of the wall in the upper right corner of the painting against a vivid blue sky in the top third of the composition. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, and glimpses of raw canvas are light brown at the edges. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner in blue, “Marquet.”
Albert Marquet, Posters at Trouville, 1906, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1998.74.1

Posters at Trouville

Albert Marquet · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1998.74.1

This painting shows a seaside scene from an elevated point of view. The horizon is placed in the upper third of the painting, where the turquoise-and-green sea meets the sky, which is a blend of green, teal, peach, and lavender. Small sailboats can be seen sailing across the sea, and a few long, white poles appear to stick out of the water. To the left of center, a person in a white rowboat faces the shore, holding two long yellow oars. Closer to us, a group of people gather along the edge of the water, facing away from us. They are in colorful attire, including dresses, coats, and trousers, with some carrying parasols. Their clothes are in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, and white. The ground they stand on has patches of green, gray, yellow, orange and red, and on the left is a collection of colorful flags. The brushstrokes are expressive and visible, especially in the ground and sea. In the bottom right corner, the beige paper is visible on the edges of a section of yellow and orange ground.
Raoul Dufy, The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, 1906, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1998.74.3

The Beach at Sainte-Adresse

Raoul Dufy · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1998.74.3

Trees and mountains nearly fill this composition and are painted with long, mostly parallel brushstrokes in this horizontal landscape. The trees are painted with long dashes of royal and aquamarine blue, pine and mint green to suggest leaves on coral-red trunks. The grass below is lemon-lime yellow, and a walking path is picked out with lavender-purple strokes. The mountains beyond the trees are painted with flat areas of coral, apricot orange, and cobalt blue. The sky above is pale turquoise with a few swirling, cream-colored clouds.
André Derain, Mountains at Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.4

Mountains at Collioure

André Derain · 1905 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.4

A French window with its sill lined with flowerpots opens into a view of boats floating in a body of water in this loosely painted, vibrantly colored, stylized, vertical painting. The doors open inward, and they are painted with coral orange and cranberry red. The wall behind the door to the left is peacock blue and the wall to our right is fuchsia pink, and those colors are reflected in the opposite windows of the doors. Three flowerpots in crimson red, marmalade orange, or royal blue sit on the windowsill in front of us. Foliage in the pots is painted with short strokes of cardinal red and turquoise blue. Over the window, a two-paned transom window pierces a forest-green wall. The view through the panes has a band of salmon pink across the top and dabs of celery green and banana yellow below. The dabs and dashes of pine and lime green continue down the sides of the window and across the sill, suggesting vines growing up around the opening. A band of ultramarine blue beyond the flowerpots could be a balcony. Several rust-orange masts of ships with hulls painted with swipes of indigo blue, flamingo pink, forest green, and marigold orange float in the water beyond. The water is painted with parallel strokes in pale pink and butter yellow. The sky above is painted with thick, wavy lines of steel blue, periwinkle purple, and seafoam green. The artist signed the work in red paint in the lower right, “Henri Matisse.”
Henri Matisse, Open Window, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1998.74.7

Open Window, Collioure

Henri Matisse · 1905 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1998.74.7

Painted in muted lime green, plum purple, buttercup yellow, slate and royal blue, the head and shoulders of a man with peach-colored skin sitting in front of a window looks at us in this stylized, vertical portrait. His body and face are angled to our right but he looks at us from the corners of his eyes, which are grass-green with touches of yellow. One cobalt-blue eyebrow is cocked, and shading in denim blue, butter yellow, and fern green create hollows under both eyes. His flat nose has a broad bridge, and his pale pink lips are closed, the far corner pulled slightly up. His mustache is painted with visible strokes of forest green and his ginger-orange beard is trimmed along his prominent, jutting chin. His short, dark hair is brushed back from his temples and is painted with strokes of pine green, navy blue, and coral orange. His shirt has a wide, golden yellow stripe along the collar above indigo blue, under a grayish-violet purple jacket. The wall over his shoulder, in the upper left corner, is painted vivid lime green with long, vertical brushstrokes. The view through the window beyond his other shoulder is of vegetation and mountains. The portrait is painted with visible brushstrokes throughout, and is especially loose in the background, hair, and jacket. An inscription in dark green script in the upper left reads, “a l'ami Carriere PGauguin.” A second inscription in the lower left is written with dark brown paint: “l'ami Laval PGo.”
Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carrière, 1888 or 1889, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.20

Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carrière

Paul Gauguin · 1888 or 1889 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.20

Bibliography

1981

  • Kahn, E.J. The Life and Times of John Hay Whitney. New York, 1981

1982

  • "John Hay Whitney Dies at 77; Published Led in Many Fields." The New York Times Biographical Service 13, no. 1-3 (Jan-Mar 1982):270-272

1998

  • "Philanthropist Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney Dies." The Washington Post 27 March 1998:B6