Self-Portrait+with+Palette

Date: ca. 1906
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1952/1952.13.53_1a.jpg?itok=ZSBVrPNF width="232" height="314" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/self-portrait-palette-1327"]] || Title: **Self-Portrait with Palette**

Artist: **Alice Pike Barney** Born: Cincinnati, Ohio 1857 Died: Los Angeles, California 1931

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 33 1/4 x 24 1/8 in. (84.5 x 61.3 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney

Accession: 1952.13.53 || Barney was a wealthy woman of many talents, she was a painter, playwright and director. In addition she was a philanthropist and patron of the arts. Married to Albert Barney, a Gilded Age industrialist, she largely led a separate life from her husband. Along with Whistler, Barney studied painting under Carolus-Duran in Paris. Primarily a portrait artist, she painted such sitters as the artists and writers Whistler, G. B. Shaw, Ana Pavlova, Sara Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, as well as the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. Barney was known for her lively “salons,” Bohemian lifestyle, and unusual family life in Washington DC. Her daughter, Natalie Barney, was Romaine Brook’s lifelong companion.
 * About the Artwork: **

Barney built the Studio House in Washington DC with the intention of showing “this cultural backwater how to live artistically.” The Barney home at 2306 Massachusetts Avenue is now the Latvian Embassy.

Her self-portrait shows a spirited woman (note the slashing diagonals) with a will to act as she wishes. The downward look, askance to the viewer, shows a defiance possibly meant for her husband and the wealthy society who judged her for “playing with art.” There is a precedence for this view seen in Fragonard’s self-portrait painting, //L’Inspiration// (1769; Louvre Museum). For other representational views of Alice Pike Barney see the 1894 portrait by Hubert Vos. Also consider the formal similarities and differences observable in //Vinnie Ream// (1874) by George Healy and //Lady Shannon and Kitty// (1902) by J. J. Shannon.

Portrait of Alice Pike Barney by Jared B. Flagg
 * Resources: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
 * Links: **