After the Meeting

Artist Cecilia Beaux (American, 1855-1942)

Place of OriginUnited States

Date1914

DimensionsPainting: 41 × 28 in. (104.1 × 71.1 cm)
Frame: 47 3/8 × 34 1/2 × 4 in. (120.3 × 87.6 × 10.2 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Florence Scott Libbey

Object number

1915.163

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 29A

Label TextIndependent, unconventional, with a strong will and strong personality, American artist Cecilia Beaux carved out a successful career for herself as a society portraitist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When she painted this work, she was winding down her tenure as the first woman instructor on the regular faculty of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. The fashionably-dressed woman caught in mid-conversation is Dorothea Gilder, Beaux’s close friend and romantic partner and the daughter of Richard Watson Gilder, poet and editor of Century Magazine. The subject of the meeting referred to in the title is left to our imagination, though the Gilder household was noted for its lively gatherings of intellectuals. The painting is unusual for Beaux in its compositional devices influenced by the art of Japan. Japanese aesthetics had been fully absorbed into European art by the end of the 19th century. The cropping of objects, the oblique angle of the dominant figure, the contrasting patterns, and the relative flatness of major areas all take their cue from Japanese art, although After the Meeting stands at the end of japonisme in America.Published ReferencesCarnegie Institute, 18th Annual Exhibition, Pittsburgh, 1914, no. 13, repr.

Borglum, Gutzon, "Cecilia Beaux," Delineator, June 1921, repr. (col.).

Baltimore Museum of Art, A Survey of American Painting, 1934, no. 33, p. 18.

Montclair Art Museum, Twenty-Five Years of American Art, 1938, no. 3, repr.

Drinker, H., The Paintings and Drawings of Cecilia Beaux, (exh. cat.), PAFA, Philadelphia, 1955, p. 59, repr. p. 60.

University Park, Pennsylvania, State University; Toledo Museum of Art (1956), Centennial Exhibition: Pennsylvania Painters, 1955, no. 38, repr.

"Art and American Life," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 7, no. 3, Autumn 1964, repr. p. 66.

Rheims, Maurice, L'art 1900, Paris, 1965, p. 133, repr. no. 220.

Herron Museum of Art, Jewelry and Finery, Indianapolis, 1967, no. 75, repr.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Cecilia Beaux : Portrait of an Artist : An Exhibition Organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Cooperation with Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1974-1975, 1974-1975, no. 67, repr. (col.), p. 111.

Stein, Judith, "Profile of Cecilia Beaux," Feminist Art Journal, vol. 4, no. 4, Winter 1975-1976, p. 29-30, repr. p. 26.

Fine, Elsa H., Women and Art, Montclair, 1978, p. 116, repr. fig. 5-21, p. 118.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 22, pl. 161.

Greer, Germaine, The Obstacle Race, New York, 1979, p. 326, repr.

Bårtvedt, Alf et al., Insight: Aspects of British and American Civilization, Oslo, 1986, p. 147, repr. (col.) p. 149.

Sello, Gottfried, Malerinnen aus fünf Jahrhunderten, Hamburg, 1988, p. 124, repr. (col.).

Tappert, Tara L., "Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist," Women's Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 14, no. 4, 1988, p. 389, fig. 2.

Schoeser, Mary and Celia Rufey, English and American Textiles from 1790 to the Present, London, 1989, p. 164, repr. (col.).

"Cecilia Beaux, the Strength of Character," Victoria, vol. 4, no. 3, March 1990, repr. p. 53 (col.).

Sullivan, Charles, ed., Loving: Poetry and Art, New York, 1992, repr. p. 91 (col.).

Bremer, Sidney H., Urban Intersections: Meetings of Life and Literature in United States Cities, Urbana, 1992, p. 49, fig. 6, p. 50.

South Bend Regional Museum of Art, Ideals from the East, 1994-1995, repr.

Prieto, Laura R., At Home it the Studio: the Professionalization of Women Artists in America, Cambridge, MA, Harvard, 2001, p. 175-176, fig. 12.

Atlanta, GA, High Museum of Art; Tacoma Art Museum, WA; Philadelphia, PA, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter, May 12, 2007 - April 13, 2008, no. 79, p. 38, 182, repr. p. 167 (col.).

May, Stephen, "Beaux's art revival," Art News, vol. 106, no. 9, Oct. 2007, p. 179, repr. (col.).

AFA: A Century in the Arts, New York, American Federation of Arts, 2010, repr. (col.) p. 7.

Rosina, Margherita. Ritratti di Signore, Portraits of Ladies, Museo Studio del Tessuto della Fondazione Antonio Ratti, 2012. pg. 41 (repr).

Exhibition HistoryPittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 18th Annual Exhibition, 1914, no. 13.

New York, National Academy of Design, 1914, no. 270.

Syracuse, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Portraits by Cecilia Beaux, 1931, no. 10.

New York, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Paintings by Cecilia Beaux, 1935, no. 7.

Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress Exhibition, 1934.

Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, A Survey of American Painting, 1934, no. 33.

Montclair, Montclair Art Museum, Twenty-Five Years of American Art, 1938, no. 3.

Philadelphia, PAFA, 150th Anniversary Exhibition, 1955, no. 124.

University Park, Pennsylvania, State University; Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art (1956), Centennial Exhibition: Pennsylvania Painters, 1955, no. 38.

Chattanooga, Hunter Gallery of Art, 1956.

Columbus, Columbus Museum of Art, 1956.

Duluth, Minn, University of Minnesota Museum, 1956.

Hintington, W.V., Huntington Galleries, 1956.

Louisville, Kentucky, J.B. Speed Museum, 1956.

Memphis, Tennessee, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, 1956.

Indianapolis, Herron Museum of Art, Jewelry and Finery, 1967, no. 75.

Philadelphia, Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center; Indianapolis, Indianapolis Museum of Art; Cecilia Beaux: Portrait of An Artist, 1974-1975, no. 67.

South Bend, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, Ideals from the East, 1994-1995.

Atlanta, GA, High Museum of Art; Tacoma, Tacoma Art Museum, WA; Philadelphia, PA, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter, May 12, 2007 - April 13, 2008, no. 79.

Philadelphia, PA, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2008.