« I'm reading a book about romaine brooks, a wonderful painter from early in the last century. »
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Romaine Brooks
1874-1970
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« American painter and draughtswoman. She grew up in various European and American cities, including Paris, Rome, Geneva and New York, living in a disturbing family atmosphere. When she was seven, her mother abandoned her in New York, and her Irish laundress, Mrs Hickey, took her into her home, where they lived in severe poverty until Brooks’s grandfather’s secretary collected her. Brooks was allowed and encouraged to draw by Mrs Hickey. In 1896–7 Brooks went to Rome, studying at the Scuola Nazionale by day and the Circolo Artistico by night. The only woman at the Scuola, she was one of the first to be allowed to draw from a nude male model. In summer 1899 she studied at the Académie Colarossi, Paris. A substantial fortune inherited from her grandfather (1902) markedly altered the quality of her life. Brooks moved to London (1902–4), made her earliest mature portrait paintings of young women, and returned to Paris. Her first one-person exhibition was at the Galerie Durand-Ruel (1910), of 13 portraits, including those of noted members of Parisian society. These and later works for which she is renowned (e.g. Ida Rubenstein, 1917; Washington, DC, Smithsonian Inst.) have a characteristic boldness that sets the figures apart from their environments. Her drawings are more imaginary, exploring personal and fanciful themes. Brooks’s style suggests an interest in Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Interest in Brooks was reawakened by a major exhibition at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC, in 1971. »
"Brooks, Romaine." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, 2012
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« No destiny, either by fetters or by fire, will tame :
The secret diamond of your ingenious heart.
Standing between bleak sky and foaming waters.
You fear not the shock of the tenth wave. »
Gabriele d’Annuzio
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+-+1917.jpg "Romaine Brooks - La vénus triste (Ida Rubinstein) - 1917")
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