Lady in Pink

Frieseke was attracted to Paris in 1899 as a student by seeing the work of French Impressionists at the Chicago World Exhibition in 1893. In Paris he was also greatly influenced by the work of his fellow American, Whistler, by whom he was taught briefly. This elegantly posed study-cum-portrait of Maud Kelly who posed for several of the artist’s friends, was painted in Frieseke’s bedsit-studio in Montparnasse, a poor southern suburb of Paris. Its colour harmonies of pink and white and its thinly painted washes on cheap bare cardboard show much evidence both of Whistler’s technique and of Frieseke’s own student expertise and delight in watercolour painting.