Afternoon - Yellow Room

Curatorial Summary

Frederick Carl Frieseke was born in Michigan but spent most of his life in France. He studied in more conservative Parisian academies before turning to the Impressionist idiom and devoting his summers to painting at Giverny, France. His garden villa there is the setting for many of his works as well as many by other American artists who worked in Giverny. Frieseke was the leader of the Giverny Group, which included American Impressionists who painted near the home of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet. For many years Frieseke painted intimate scenes of women seated in gardens or sunrooms with contrasting light. The figures are not portraits but were regarded as decorative incidents of color compositions and patterns, a concern we also find in Post-Impressionist work such as Edouard Vuillard’s. According to Frieseke’s own statement, he did not make sketches before painting, but took the inspiration for his canvas straight from nature.

Afternoon – Yellow Room is one of several works with similar titles painted in Frieseke’s favorite interior setting. In one version painted in the morning light, the composition is similar to the IMA painting but the sitter is looking back towards the viewer. Other versions, such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ Yellow Room, show different parts of this bright-colored space, suggesting Frieseke’s preference for depicting his familiar, intimate world as well as the Impressionist idea of painting the same motif from different angles and under various light effects.

Reference

Kilmer, Nicholas, Virginia M. Mecklenburg, David Sellin, and H. Barbara Weinberg. Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist. Savannah, GA: Telfair Museum of Art, 2001.

(R. C. and N. M. Vose, Boston, Massachusetts);
Mrs. John N. Carey [1859-1938], Indianapolis;
purchased by the John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 1929 (29.71).