Miss Kaji Waki (Primary Title)
Robert Henri, American, 1865 - 1929 (Artist)
A dynamic painter, teacher, and art theorist, Robert Henri was one of the pivotal figures in American art at the beginning of the 20th century. The leader of the Ashcan School, he pushed against the prevailing trends of academicism and Impressionism in favor of the slice-of-life realism. With direct, quick strokes and a dark palette, he strove to make paintings that “express the undercurrent, the real life” of modern existence, which included gritty urban scenes and portraits of those who lived there.
Bertha Adeline Waki Kaji (1887-1959), an artist’s model and author, is posed against a dark background, in the tradition of the grand portraits of Diego Velázquez, Édouard Manet, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The timeless simplicity of her setting imbues a deep sense of elegance, which is heightened by her confident pose and au courant dress, items that were available to the modern, cosmopolitan women of New York City.
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