Portrait Of My Mother

“My Mother was always sewing,” Eileen said. “As we were growing up, she made all our clothes. We were the handsomest kids in Holyoke!” Eileen did this painting of her Mother threading a needle, a typical pose, in 1955, the year her Mother died. A photo Eileen had taken of her Mother in 1940 inspired it. Before her Mother’s death, Eileen had entered the painting in the American Watercolor Society exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Shortly after the exhibit opened Eileen received a letter saying someone wanted to purchase the painting. “The painting is a portrait of my Mother, who died four days ago, so of course I cannot sell the picture,” Eileen wrote in reply. Eileen’s Mother died in July of 1955. Her Father died slightly more than six months later.