Birthday Bouquet
Alternate TitleFlowers with Snake
Artist
Florine Stettheimer
(American, 1871 - 1944)
Date1932
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 30 x 26 1/8 inches (76.2 x 66.36 cm)
Framed: 37 11/16 × 33 11/16 × 3 inches (95.73 × 85.57 × 7.62 cm)
Framed: 37 11/16 × 33 11/16 × 3 inches (95.73 × 85.57 × 7.62 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. R. Kirk Askew Jr. in memory of R. Kirk Askew Jr.
Object numberF79-65
Signedb.c. (in snake): "FLORINE 1932"
Inscribedtop stretcher member: "FLORINE 1932 STETTHEIMER"
right stretcher member: "TARRYTOW ON HUDSON"
left stretcher member: "BIRTHDAY BOUQUET 1932"
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionIn center; a large floral bouquet in tall, slender vase with a thick, snakelike coil wrapped around base, superimposed over pastel landscape/backyard scene with female figures placed in the landscape around perimeter. Lower left, figure reclining on canopied chaise, writing or sketching. Lower right, standing figure arranging flowers (?). Upper right, two figures seated at a table playing cards.Exhibition HistoryAmerican
Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918-1939, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; July 9
2022–January 8 2023, no cat.
Each year on her birthday, Florine Stettheimer picked a bouquet of flowers for her self and often commemorated the event in paint. Stettheimer referred to these annual floral still lifes as "eyegays" for the visual, rather than olfactory, appeal of small bouquets known as nosegays. In addition to petunias, a cactus dahlia, pompon dahlias and delphinium, this eyegay features portraits of the artist's mother and two sisters as well as Stettheimer herself arranging flowers at the lower right.
Stettheimer's unconventional manner of painting was likely encouraged by prominent modern artists, like Marcel Duchamp, who comprised her chic circles. Naive-looking but sophisticated, Stettheimer's style inspired comparisons to folk art, which was widely celebrated in the early 20th-century.
Carl Van Vechten, “The World of Florine Stettheimer,” Harper’s
Bazaar 79 (October 1946), 356 (as Flowers with Snake); Henry
McBride, Florine Stettheimer, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1946), 55 (as Flowers with a Snake); Exhibition of
Paintings by Florine Stettheimer, exh. cat. (Chicago: Arts Club of
Chicago, 1947), unpaginated (as Flowers with a Snake); The Flow
ers of Florine Stettheimer, exh. cat. (New York: Durlacher Broth
ers, 1948), upaginated (as Flowers with a Snake); Parker Tyler,
Florine Stettheimer: A Life in Art (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Co., 1963), 77, 153–54, opp. 179 (as Flowers with Snake); Edward
Sozanski, “Florine Stettheimer Retrospective,” Providence (R.I.)
Journal, 30 April 1980, clipping, NAMA curatorial fi les; Elisabeth
Sussman, Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants,
1910–1942, exh. cat. (Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art,
1980), unpaginated, fig. 15; Donna Bachmann, “Hidden Treasures
by Women at the Nelson,” Forum, Summer 1983, 7–8; Barbara
J. Bloemink, “Florine Stettheimer: Alternative Modernist,” Ph.D.
diss., Yale University, 1993, 1:xiv, 253–54, 2: fig. 198 (as Flowers with Snake); Elisabeth Sussman, Barbara J. Bloemink, and
Linda Nochlin, Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica, exh.
cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995), 26, 51,
141; Barbara J. Bloemink, The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 200–202 (as Flowers
with Snake; Birthday Bouquet [Flowers with Snake]).
Bazaar 79 (October 1946), 356 (as Flowers with Snake); Henry
McBride, Florine Stettheimer, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1946), 55 (as Flowers with a Snake); Exhibition of
Paintings by Florine Stettheimer, exh. cat. (Chicago: Arts Club of
Chicago, 1947), unpaginated (as Flowers with a Snake); The Flow
ers of Florine Stettheimer, exh. cat. (New York: Durlacher Broth
ers, 1948), upaginated (as Flowers with a Snake); Parker Tyler,
Florine Stettheimer: A Life in Art (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Co., 1963), 77, 153–54, opp. 179 (as Flowers with Snake); Edward
Sozanski, “Florine Stettheimer Retrospective,” Providence (R.I.)
Journal, 30 April 1980, clipping, NAMA curatorial fi les; Elisabeth
Sussman, Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants,
1910–1942, exh. cat. (Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art,
1980), unpaginated, fig. 15; Donna Bachmann, “Hidden Treasures
by Women at the Nelson,” Forum, Summer 1983, 7–8; Barbara
J. Bloemink, “Florine Stettheimer: Alternative Modernist,” Ph.D.
diss., Yale University, 1993, 1:xiv, 253–54, 2: fig. 198 (as Flowers with Snake); Elisabeth Sussman, Barbara J. Bloemink, and
Linda Nochlin, Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica, exh.
cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995), 26, 51,
141; Barbara J. Bloemink, The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 200–202 (as Flowers
with Snake; Birthday Bouquet [Flowers with Snake]).
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Guy Head
ca. 1793
2000.14
