Girl in Brown.jpg

William Frederick Foster, A.N.A.
b. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1883
d. New York City, New York, 1953
Girl in Brown, c. 1930
Oil on canvas
51 x 36 inches
Collection of GHS/LAUSD, Gift to GHS, 1934. © 2018 LAUSD Art & Artifact Collection/Archive

In 1930, Will Foster was voted an Associate of the National Academy of Design in New York as recognition for his painting Girl in Brown. Foster had studied with some of the greatest portrait and figure painters, Frank Duveneck, Robert Henri, and William Merritt Chase, learning to paint formal portraits of smartly dressed and coifed woman in the academic manner. In Girl in Brown, although the artist’s focus is on effectively interpreting various textural qualities, he also captures the moody beauty and quiet poise of the subject—his estranged wife, Audrey Marye.

Girl in Brown was donated to the GHS collection soon after it was included in an exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of works by Southern California artists on the Public Works of Art Project.

Below are painting details of the face and the hat:

Girl in Brown close up 1.jpg Girl in Brown close up 2.jpg