Nancy Andrews, Nelita Williams and Barbara Hudson, 1993, gelatin silver print, Gift of Nancy Andrews and Annie O'Neill, 2022.122.33

Family

Artworks that depict families capture both bonds and complex relationships. Historical family portraits reflected the status of the subjects and often documented their dynamics as well. And countless artists have lovingly depicted the people that matter most to them, whether blood relations or chosen kin.

  • A group of three men, two children, and one woman gather in an empty, dusky rose-pink landscape under a blue, cloudy sky in this nearly square painting. Most of the people have muted, peachy skin, and the woman and the youngest boy have cream-white skin. The woman sits on the ground to our right, apart from the rest of the men and children. She wears a coral-red skirt, a beige shawl, and straw hat, and she looks into the distance to our right. The others stand in a loose semi-circle on the left half of the composition. A man wearing a multicolored, diamond-patterned costume stands with his back to us to the left. He looks to our right in profile and holds the hand of a little girl who also stands with her back to us. She wears a pink dress and white stockings, and her right hand rests on the tall handle of a white basket. A portly man wearing a scarlet-red jester’s costume and pointed hat stands opposite this pair, facing us to our right. Next to him to our right a young man wears a tan-colored leotard with a black bottom. He holds a barrel over his right shoulder and looks over to our right. The sixth person is the youngest boy, who wears a baggy blue and red outfit, and he looks toward the woman. The eyes of all the figures are deeply shadowed.
  • A woman sitting in an upholstered chair near a vanity table touches the hair of the little girl leaning against her lap to our left, as a man leans onto the back of her chair to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The people all have pale skin, flushed cheeks, and their pale gray hair is pulled back and curled. Their pink lips curve in slight smiles, and light glinting off of much of the fabric suggests they wear satin or silk. The woman’s body is angled to our left, toward the girl, but she turns her head back to look up over her other shoulder with gray eyes. A voluminous, cream-white cloth drapes over her shoulders and lap, over a bodice covered in lilac-purple bows and ribbons. Her gold satin skirt falls around her feet. The little girl leans onto one arm on the woman’s lap as she turns to look at us with pale blue eyes. The girl’s forget-me-not-blue dress has a fitted bodice, elbow-length sleeves over white cuffs, a long, full skirt, and white ruffles along the collar. The woman holds blue flowers in the girl’s hair, and the girl’s forearm wraps around a bundle of pink and red flowers in the woman’s lap. The chair is upholstered in teal blue and has a gold frame and a row of gold nail heads along the padded back and arm. The man leans one forearm against the back of the chair as he looks down at the girl. In that hand, he holds a folded piece of paper with writing. He wears a loose jacket decorated with gold pagodas, pink and yellow flowers, and spruce-green leaves against a brown background. Foamy white lace falls back from his cuffs and hangs down from the high white collar of his undershirt. He wears brick-red, knee-length britches, white stockings, and black shoes with silver buckles. His other hand is planted against his hip, and one ankle is crossed in front of the other. A vanity draped with a white cloth sits on the far side of the woman and girl, along the left edge of the painting. It holds gold and glass vessels and boxes, and a rounded mirror at the back is draped with dark pink cloth. The lower half of a window behind the vanity is covered by a white cloth, and the panes continue beyond the top of the canvas. A teal-blue curtain hangs along the right edge of the window, at the corner of the room. A clock with a gold case of swirling, carved designs hangs high on the peanut-brown wall behind the man. On the floor near the chair, blue and white striped tissue paper, a rose-pink ribbon, and a strand of pearls drape over the edges of an open box. Writing along the front edge of the lid of the box reads, “Fs. Drouais. Ce 1 avril. 1756.” A pink rose lies near the girl’s feet, to our left.
  • A Black woman, young man, and young boy pose against a painted backdrop in this vertical photograph. The image is monochromatic like a black and white photograph but is printed in warm tones of golden and dark browns. The man and woman have slight smiles, and all three look at us. At the center, the slender woman sits on a wooden chair with her body angled slightly to our left, though she turns her head to us. Her skin tone is a little lighter than that of the man and boy, and her hair is styled in an ear-length bob. Her scoop-neck, sleeveless, ankle-length dress shimmers as if covered with beads or sequins. She wears round glasses, dangling earrings with pearls, and short and long strands of pearls. Light catches two rings on her left hand and a bangle bracelet encircles each arm. Her shiny, high-heeled shoes have a lattice-like pattern cut into the tops around the T-straps. She holds an object, perhaps with feathers, in her lap. To our left of the woman, the young, cleanshaven man stands facing us with his weight equally balanced on both feet, positioned slightly apart. He rests his left hand, on our right, on the back of the woman’s chair and holds his flat-topped, brimmed hat in the crook of his other elbow. His dark, crisply pressed uniform has a snug fitting jacket with a high collar, shiny buttons in a row down the front, and a braided cord looped over his left shoulder and under his arm. The jacket is cinched with a wide belt and a thin leather band runs diagonally across his chest. To our right of the woman, the boy stands with one ankle crossed in front of the other and his right arm, on our left, resting on the arm of the woman’s chair. In that hand, the top of his hat is a bright white oval. He rests his other hand near the top of a child-sized cane, close to his body. His hair is cut very short. The boy’s dark sailor’s suit has white stripes around the neck and at the cuffs. A white bulldog puppy with darker spots around its eyes stands at the boy’s feet, partially hidden by fabric that hangs off a piece of furniture in the lower right. A wooden table behind the boy holds a stack of a few books and a bouquet of wilted, light colored flowers. The background behind the people has a painted or wallpapered section to our left and an arch leading to a curtained window to our right. Parts of the photograph are noticeably out of focus, particularly the background.
  • Shown from about the hips up against a dark gray background, a rosy-cheeked, light-skinned woman stands before a wooden table as she arranges flowers in this vertical portrait. Her body is angled to our right, and she turns to look at us with clear blue eyes under curving brows. She has a straight nose, and her small bow lips are closed. Her gray hair is loosely bound, and curls fall over her shoulders. She wears a white muslin dress with puffed sleeves and blousy ruffles around the neckline. Her dress is gathered at her waist with a sheer, gold-striped sash. The wide brim of her straw hat curves down across her forehead, and a robin’s egg-blue ribbon is tied around the crown into a bow at the back. Puffy feathers of the same blue billow up and forward at the front of the hat. She stands at a wooden table that extends off the right side of the canvas. A deep blue bowl sitting on bright gold feet holds pale pink, yellow, crimson-red, and aquamarine-blue flowers. The woman holds up a pink flower, perhaps a rose, in her left hand and ties it with a blue ribbon.
  • We look slightly down onto a young woman sitting in an upholstered chair and tightly hugging a nude, blond child in this vertical, colored print. Both have pale, peach-toned skin. The woman’s black hair is pulled back though a couple tendrils curl on her forehead. Her eyes are downcast and her pink lips parted. She wears a long, cream-white dress dotted with blush-pink, petal-like forms. One arm is under the baby’s chubby bottom and the other braces the child behind the shoulders. The baby wraps their arms around the woman’s neck so they are cheek to cheek. The chair sits in front of a bed with a boxy frame and a pillowy white mattress. The upholstery on the woman’s chair and the wallpaper behind her are patterned with coral-pink flowers and vines against butter yellow. The floor is also coral pink. A mark with an oval, or a mirrored C, over an uppercase M, is stamped in royal blue at the bottom center of the print. The sheet is inscribed with graphite across the right half of the bottom margin, “Edition de 25 épreuves Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy Mary Cassatt.”
  • In a deeply shadowed room, two women and several children are gathered at the center of this wide, oval painting, looking toward a young man and donkey who peer in over a half-door to our left. The people all have light skin, and all of the children have blond hair. Light coming into the darkened room falls on a young woman holding a baby at the center of the composition. The woman sits facing our left in profile, looking at or toward the baby with brown eyes and parted lips. She has a long, straight nose, flushed cheeks, and her brown hair is pulled back into a bun at the back of her head. She wears a low-cut, ivory-white bodice with puffy sleeves, a black sash tied around her waist, and a voluminous crimson-red skirt. She props the baby so the child stands braced on chubby legs against her lap as the woman supports the torso and backside. One of the baby’s hands reaches for the woman’s neck and the other for her forehead as the head twists back to look to our left. The child wears a white garment. Two more children rest near the woman, with one leaning back against the woman’s shins and the other sitting with a white dog at the woman’s side, closer to us. Both children wear brown, white, and teal blue. Behind this group, another woman, seen mostly silhouetted against the shadows, reaches back and braces another child who seems to sit on a box or chest. The fifth and final child stands at the head of the donkey who peeks in over the half-door to our left. Above the donkey, a young, cleanshaven man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and baggy coat leans into the room and looks toward the central woman, a smile on his lips. His features are cast into shadow by the light coming in behind him but he has dark hair and dark eyes. The room beyond the women and children is draped with a gray cloth, as if hung over a low beam. The upper regions of the room are swallowed in shadow.
  • A young woman sitting with a nude infant lying in her lap is flanked on either side by an older woman to our left and an elderly man with a nude young boy to our right in this vertical painting. They all have pale skin tinged with blue. At the center, the young woman, Mary, is draped in a cobalt-blue mantle that partially covers her head and falls to her shoulders to wrap around a dusky rose-pink gown. The mantle is pushed back from one side of her head, revealing dark brown hair. Her right arm embraces the shoulders of the old woman standing next to her, to our left, who leans toward Mary. A tangerine-orange cloak wraps around the older woman and her hair is covered by a white cowl. Both women have long faces and noses with deep set eyes under thick arched brows, and they gaze down at the infant. The mostly bald, pudgy baby lies across a white piece of fabric, two corners of which are held up by the older woman. Another young boy stands alongside Mary to our right. He faces us, holding a basket or glass bowl containing oval-shaped caramel-brown objects the size of figs in one hand. His elongated head is crowned with tawny brown hair, and his face turns away from the infant to gaze off to our right. One finger of his left hand, on our right, rests alongside his rose-red lips. The elderly man stands behind him, leaning over Mary’s shoulder to look at the older woman. We see him from the waist up with a golden-yellow cloak layered over an olive-green vest, and the arm we see is clad in a white sleeve. The group takes up most of the height of the composition and are crowded together against an azure-blue sky swirling with thin gray and white clouds. The scene is painted largely with long strokes of saturated color. The dark gray ground below is painted with sketchy strokes of white, blue, and pink.

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Shown from the shoulders up, a woman and man, both with brown skin, look at each other in this horizontal portrait painting. Their bodies are angled toward each other and both have black hair, dark eyebrows, and full, coral-red lips. To our left, the woman faces our right in profile. She has a delicate nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes are painted with black lashes over black eyes, without the white of the eye. A gold disk earring hangs from the ear we can see, and she wears white and royal-blue beads in two necklaces. Her hair is combed or styled close to her head, and a swath of brick-red fabric, flecked with golden yellow, wraps around the back of her neck. A scarf with butter-yellow, denim-blue, and red stripes in a plaid pattern is draped across her shoulders, over a rose-pink garment. To our right, the man’s face is angled toward the woman but we see both eyes and the far cheek. His hair is closely cropped and he has a rounded nose, curving brows, and full cheeks. The shadows and folds of his white garment are painted with streaks of teal blue. The background behind the pair is patterned with bands and geometric designs of mustard yellow, scarlet red, and teal, with some stylized leaves in emerald and forest green. The artist signed the work in red paint in the lower right corner, “Lois M. Jones.”

Love

From blossoming romances to painful heartbreaks or lifelong connections, artists capture all stages of love. This most universal human emotion has inspired countless moving works of art.

Portraits

Portraits represent people, either real or imagined, attempting to capture their appearance or essence. Some artists explored the human form and emotions through portraits of loved ones. Others made a living depicting wealthy or important people. And artists like Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh frequently used themselves as models.