''Dorothy'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

artist

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...

. Created in 1902, it is currently part of the permanent collection in the

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It i ...

Description

The image's subject is Chase's 11-year-old daughter, Dorothy, wearing a white dress with full-length sleeves, a straw hat with a green bow, a black belt, black tights, and black shoes. She is standing against a brown background without any detail, so the viewer's eye is focused only on her. Dorothy stares straight out at the viewer, engaging them. With a 6' canvas, ''Dorothy'' is reminiscent of full-length

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

paintings of

emperors An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

, giving the young girl a grandiose image.

Historical information

Chase's favorite image to paint was his family, including his wife and his daughters, which are also his most well received. ''Dorothy'' is a painting in a series of full-length portraits Chase created of his family between 1886 and 1902. Chase was the founder of the Chase School, which eventually became

Parsons The New School for Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhat ...

, one of the most famous art schools in the United States. As a teacher, some of his students include

Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ameri ...

and

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...

Acquisition

''Dorothy'' was purchased from the artist at the Exhibition of Indiana Art in Tomlinson Hall, in 1903, using the John Herron fund.

References

{{IMAart Paintings in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art 1902 paintings Paintings by William Merritt Chase Paintings of children