Figural
LILLA CABOT PERRY (1848–1933)
Children Dancing, II, 1895
Oil on canvas, 48 x 33 1/2 in.
RECORDED: Boston Daily Transcript, November 11, 1897 // Lisa M. Ward, “Lilla Cabot Perry and the Emergence of the Professional Woman Artist,” unpub. Master’s thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 1985
EXHIBITED: St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1897, An Exhibition of Paintings by Mrs. T. S. Perry, no. 37 // Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1898 // Braus Galleries, New York, 1922, An Exhibition of Paintings by Lilla Cabot Perry, no. 25 // Boston Art Club, Boston, 1933, A Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by Lilla Cabot Perry, no. 7 as “Children Dancing” // Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts, 1982, Lilla Cabot Perry, 1848–1933: Paintings, no. 1 as “Dancing Girls” // Santa Fe East, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1982, Five American Women Impressionists, p. 36 as “Dancing Girls” // Santa Fe East, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1983, Lilla Cabot Perry: Days to Remember, as “Dancing Girls” // National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., September 28, 1990–January 20, 1991, Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist, pp. 46 no. 17 illus. in color, 147–48 no. 26
EX COLL.: the artist; to her estate, 1933–94; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1984]; to private collection, 1984 until the present
Dancing Girls was painted in France, soon after the Perry family returned to Giverny for the third time. One of three variations that Perry executed on the same theme, the dancers in the picture are her middle and youngest daughters, Edith (b. 1880) and Alice (b. 1884). Edith Perry was a gifted musician. Alice, a frequent portrait subject of her mother, was a great beauty who married diplomat and U.S. ambassador to Japan (1932–41), Joseph Clark Grew.
For the entire span of her career Perry found inspiration in painting her family, her three daughters, her husband, and finally, her grandchildren. These works are not so much portraits as genre subjects, with figures often engaged in playing music, posed sometimes outdoors and sometimes indoors. Here Perry explores impressionist technique in the shimmering, light-infused hues of her daughters’ dancing frocks. The dresses stand out against a dark, painterly backdrop of dark browns and black.
