Figural
IRVING RAMSAY WILES (1861–1948)
A Woman Seated, about 1900–10
Pastel on primed canvas, 15 x 11 3/4 in.
Signed (at upper left): Irving R. Wiles
EX COLL.: sale, Skinner, Bolton, Massachusetts, November 19, 1981, lot 81; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries New York, 1981–82]; to Richard Manoogian, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, 1982; private collection
Though well known as a painter in oil, Wiles cultivated his skill in pastel and watercolor, related media. He was a frequent exhibitor with both America’s Society of Pastel Artists (1882–90) and with the American Watercolor Society. Although Wiles often left accents of background untouched by his brush in watercolor, it was a technique he used in oil as well. In one of his best-known works, The Artist’s Mother and Father (1889, formerly Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), the paint is applied thinly onto a coarse-woven canvas, causing the pale skin tones to contrast dramatically with the dark background. This is a technique Wiles used in the present pastel, notably around the margins of the canvas.
A Woman Reading resides at the intersection of portraiture and genre. The figure, dressed and coifed with style, care, and elegance, sits at her ease. She appears to have just looked up from the reading matter she holds lightly on her lap, not a bound book but perhaps a magazine or journal. While she looks directly toward the viewer, her eyes do not convey a direct gaze. Rather, her head is tilted slightly, suggesting inward contemplation, not outward observation. Her figure emerges from a backdrop of blended colors that pick up some tints in her complexion and hair, with an area of dark color in the upper right corner that echoes her dress. The indeterminateness of the background reinforces an air of mystery. Our reader is lost in her own thought, and Wiles offers no details of context that might contribute to the construction of a narrative or convey information about a precise setting.
