Cover for Collier's Weekly, October 4, 1924
Date1924
Artist
Penrhyn Stanlaws
(American painter, 1877–1957)
Illustration CitationCover for Collier's Weekly, October 4, 1924
MediumPastel on painted canvas
Dimensions22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm)
frame: 24 1/2 × 19 3/8 in. (62.2 × 49.2 cm)
frame: 24 1/2 × 19 3/8 in. (62.2 × 49.2 cm)
Credit LineAcquisition Fund, 2015
Object number2015-80
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextBorn in Dundee, Scotland, Penrhyn Stanlaws came to U.S. when he was about 15 years old and before long was hired as an apprentice cartoonist on the Chicago Record newspaper. By 1897, his drawings of idealized women won the description "Stanlaws Girls," a counterpoint to Charles Dana Gibson's famous Gibson Girls. A sought-after magazine artist, Stanlaws produced several covers using the "fadeaway" technique employed here, in which some outlines of the image blend with the background.This elegant woman elegant is not trying communicate with the viewer, as many cover subjects did. Stanlaws' spare design and use of limited colors, details such as the stitching on the glove, and the soft feathery cloche hat create a glimpse of a woman checking her gold compact mirror, assured of her own sophistication.
