Jenny Liu

2008

Sheila Pree Bright

Associated Names
Sheila Pree Bright

Artist, American, born 1967

The image depicts a close-up view of a person from the shoulders to the top of the head. The person faces the camera with their face partly hidden behind a vertical white curtain with a red border. The right side of their face is visible, showing short black hair, a dark eye, and a neutral expression. They wear a navy blue top with a small pink floral pattern, and the neckline is visible. The background is a white curtain with a red edge creating a contrast with the person and their clothing.
This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.
On View

East Building Concourse, Galleries

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    chromogenic print

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson

  • Dimensions

    image/sheet: 101.6 × 25.4 cm (40 × 10 in.)
    mount: 106.68 × 30.48 cm (42 × 12 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2024.147.13

  • Series Title

    Young Americans

More About this Artwork

We look beyond a cluster of flags hanging from the side of one tall building onto a wide street at a row of buildings across from us in this vertical painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so some details are difficult to make out. We seem to lean out a window to look along the street, so the building to our right only skims the edge of the composition and continues off the top. The three flags closest to us fly from nearly horizontal flagstaffs along the bottom edge of the painting. All the flags are in shades of scarlet red, white, and royal blue. The flag closest to us is red with the red, white, and blue Union Jack in the upper corner. Beyond it is an American flag with 49 stars, and then the French flag with the vertical bands of blue, white, and red. Those three flags are repeated about a dozen times along the building that stretches away from us, along the right edge of the painting. More of those flags are hung from the cream-white and tan buildings across the street, to our left. Some of those buildings reach off the top edge of the canvas and others come close. The shadows along moldings and the windows are painted with pale and lapis blue. Through narrow gaps left between the fluttering flags, vertical strokes of navy blue and violet purple suggest crowds of people in the street below. The sky between the buildings is ice blue. The artist signed and dated the painting in the center left, “Childe Hassam May 17 1917.”

Interactive Article:  Childe Hassam and the Flag in American Art

Explore the American impressionist's paintings of the US flag.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sheila Pree Bright; Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson; gift to NGA, 2024.

Associated Names

Inscriptions

signed by artist, on artist label affixed to mount verso, center, in black ink: Sheila Pree Bright; typed on artist label in black ink: SHEILA PREE BRIGHT / YOUNG AMERICAN SERIES / "Jenny Liu" chromogenic color print / 2/7 edition / 1 of 3

You may be interested in

Loading Results