Bizarre

1928

Allen Tucker

Associated Names
Allen Tucker

Painter, American, 1866 - 1939

This painting depicts a woman from the waist up, seated sideways on a wooden chair. She is turned to the right, with her hands on the back of the chair, and looks over her shoulder towards us. She has pale skin and short reddish-brown hair visible beneath a green cap. Her red lips are slightly turned up at the edges, and her eyes are dark. She is wearing a brightly colored top with abstract shapes in orange, yellow, gray, and green against a cream background, and a green skirt that is the same shade as her hat. A bracelet adorns her wrist with vertical stripes of white, dark blue, and dark red. The chair she sits on is light yellow wood, and the background is made of vertical lines of white, cream, and gray, with hints of pastel pink, minty green, and pale blue. The brushstrokes in the painting are visible.
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Bizarre is part of a series of images of glamorous, stylishly dressed women inspired by artist Allen Tucker’s encounter with the paintings of Vincent van Gogh at the Armory Show—the influential exhibition of European and American modern art held in New York in 1913. The model sits sideways on a chair, rests her hands on its backrest, and turns her head to look directly at the viewer. The title of the painting alludes to the sitter’s unconventional pose, intense gaze, and boldly patterned blouse. The flat forms, dark contours, emphasis on decorative surface pattern, heavy impasto, and bold color recall the portraits that Van Gogh painted in Arles and Saint-Rémy in 1888 and 1889. The unusual composition is a leading example of Tucker’s postimpressionist portraits, which update Van Gogh’s style for the roaring twenties in America.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of the Allen Tucker Memorial

  • Dimensions

    overall: 77 x 64.1 cm (30 5/16 x 25 1/4 in.)
    framed: 76.8 x 64.1 cm (30 1/4 x 25 1/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1971.13.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Bizarre, 1928

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 [1866-1939]; by inheritance to his wife, Mrs. Allen Tucker [1870-1971, née Eufrasia Aguilar Leland Wesson], New York; The Allen Tucker Memorial, New York;[1] gift 1971 to NGA.
[1] The Allen Tucker Memorial was established in 1944 by the artist's widow; it was transferred in 1980 to the Art Students League.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1965

  • The Twenties Revisited, Gallery of Modern Art, New York, 1965, unnumbered catalogue.

1966

  • Allen Tucker 1866-1939: Centennial Exhibition, The Milch Galleries, New York, 1966, no. 14.

1992

  • Extended loan for use by John C. Kornblum, U.S. Representative to the Conference and Security Commission of Europe, Vienna, Austria, 1992-1994.

1994

  • Extended loan for use by Samuel Brown, U.S. Representative to the Conference and Security Commission of Europe, Vienna, Austria, 1994-1998.

2005

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary Margaret Spellings, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C., 2005-2008.

Bibliography

1932

  • Watson, Forbes. Allen Tucker. New York, 1932: 32-33, repro.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 251, repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 370, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Allen Tucker

Wikidata ID

Q20192712

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