This striking picture by John White Alexander, one of the leading “figure” painters working in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, is a classic example of his 1890s style and subject matter – a full-length image of an unidentified young woman in an elegant interior, painted in a subtle, tonal color scheme. Portrait Study in Pink also reveals the indelible influence of the fame expatriate James McNeil Whistler on a generation of American artists.
French critics, especially, noted Alexander’s artistic debt to Whistler, including his adoption of the technique of allowing the coarse weave of a canvas to reveal itself in a composition. Throughout the 1890s, Alexander produced works that share this particular tonal “staining” and textural quality with Whistler’s art, while imbuing his compositions with less severe, sinuous grace – a practice that, for many, defined Alexander as the so-called painter of the flowing line.
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