Details
Girl with Pomegranates, 1938, by acclaimed African American artist, Laura Wheeler Waring is a mix of genres, combining several of the artist's most noted strengths. Blending elements of portrait, still life and landscape, the image depicts a young woman sitting with a bowl of pomegranates, one held in her hand, before a setting in which a landscape painting is partially obscured by the backdrop. Known primarily for her landscapes and still lifes, the artist, who was born in Connecticut and studied extensively in Paris before settling in Philadelphia to teach at Cheyney University, completed striking portraits of fellow contemporaries in the New Negro Movement. This work is emblematic of Wheeler's studies of Black women of the time, defying stereotypes of race and class with depictions of Black women as sophisticated and modern. Here, it is the inclusion of the pomegranate that is most telling. In the myths of ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures, the fruit is a symbol of fertility and sensuality as well as prosperity. It was frequently depicted in hieroglyphs on Egyptian tombs and whole pomegranates have been found among the funerary goods of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, and various nobles interred at the necropolis of Thebes. Later, in Christian art, the pomegranate would be widely employed as a symbol of wealth, royalty, divinity and eternal life in paintings such as Botticelli's Madonna of the Pomegranate (1487) and the similarly-themed, The Virgin with the Pomegranate (1426) by Giovanni da Fiesole, a Dominican friar and painter, also known as Fra Angelico. Wheeler’s work brings all of this symbolic power to bear, placing it literally in the hands of a Black woman as she looks serenely out at the viewer.
Editors' Note
Laura Wheeler Waring was born on May 26, 1887, in Hartford, Connecticut, the fourth child of six, to Mary (née Freeman) and Reverend Robert Foster Wheeler. The American artist and educator was renowned for her realistic portraits, landscapes, still-life, and well-known African American portraitures she made of iconic figures — Marian Anderson, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and Mary White Ovington — during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1906, Waring began teaching part-time in Philadelphia at Cheyney Training School for Teachers (later renamed Cheyney State Teachers College and now known as Cheyney University.) She taught art and music at Cheyney until 1914 when she traveled abroad to Europe. Granted a trip to Europe by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ William E. Cresson Memorial Scholarship, she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, and traveled throughout Great Britain. While living in Paris, Wheeler Waring frequented the Jardin du Luxembourg, painting Le Parc Du Luxembourg (1918), oil on canvas, based on a sketch she made during one of her recurrent visits. Wheeler Waring also spent much time in the Louvre Museum studying Monet, Manet, Corot, and Cézanne. "I thought again and again how little of the beauty of really great pictures is revealed in the reproductions which we see and how freely and with what ease the great masters paint." Forced to leave Europe at the start of WWI, she continued to work at Cheyney and did so for more than thirty years. There, she founded the school's art and music departments. In her later years at Cheyney, she was the director of the art programs. After the end of the war, Wheeler Waring returned to Paris in June 1924. Her second trip to Paris was regarded to be a turning point in her style as well as her career. Wheeler Waring described this time as the most purely art-motivated period in her life, the "only period of uninterrupted life as an artist with an environment and associates that were a constant stimulus and inspiration." For approximately four months, Wheeler Waring lived in France, absorbing French culture and lifestyle. She began to paint many portraits, and in October enrolled to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére, where she studied painting. During this trip, she exhibited her work in Parisian art galleries for the first time. Upon return to the United States, Wheeler Waring was among the artists displayed in the country's first exhibition of African-American art, held in 1927 by the William E. Harmon Foundation. That same year she married her husband, public school educator, Walter Waring. She was commissioned by the Harmon Foundation to do portraits of prominent African Americans and chose some associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Her work was soon displayed in American institutions, including the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She currently has portraits in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
Details
Girl with Pomegranates, 1938, by acclaimed African American artist, Laura Wheeler Waring is a mix of genres, combining several of the artist's most noted strengths. Blending elements of portrait, still life and landscape, the image depicts a young woman sitting with a bowl of pomegranates, one held in her hand, before a setting in which a landscape painting is partially obscured by the backdrop. Known primarily for her landscapes and still lifes, the artist, who was born in Connecticut and studied extensively in Paris before settling in Philadelphia to teach at Cheyney University, completed striking portraits of fellow contemporaries in the New Negro Movement. This work is emblematic of Wheeler's studies of Black women of the time, defying stereotypes of race and class with depictions of Black women as sophisticated and modern. Here, it is the inclusion of the pomegranate that is most telling. In the myths of ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures, the fruit is a symbol of fertility and sensuality as well as prosperity. It was frequently depicted in hieroglyphs on Egyptian tombs and whole pomegranates have been found among the funerary goods of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, and various nobles interred at the necropolis of Thebes. Later, in Christian art, the pomegranate would be widely employed as a symbol of wealth, royalty, divinity and eternal life in paintings such as Botticelli's Madonna of the Pomegranate (1487) and the similarly-themed, The Virgin with the Pomegranate (1426) by Giovanni da Fiesole, a Dominican friar and painter, also known as Fra Angelico. Wheeler’s work brings all of this symbolic power to bear, placing it literally in the hands of a Black woman as she looks serenely out at the viewer.
Editors' Note
Laura Wheeler Waring was born on May 26, 1887, in Hartford, Connecticut, the fourth child of six, to Mary (née Freeman) and Reverend Robert Foster Wheeler. The American artist and educator was renowned for her realistic portraits, landscapes, still-life, and well-known African American portraitures she made of iconic figures — Marian Anderson, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and Mary White Ovington — during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1906, Waring began teaching part-time in Philadelphia at Cheyney Training School for Teachers (later renamed Cheyney State Teachers College and now known as Cheyney University.) She taught art and music at Cheyney until 1914 when she traveled abroad to Europe. Granted a trip to Europe by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ William E. Cresson Memorial Scholarship, she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, and traveled throughout Great Britain. While living in Paris, Wheeler Waring frequented the Jardin du Luxembourg, painting Le Parc Du Luxembourg (1918), oil on canvas, based on a sketch she made during one of her recurrent visits. Wheeler Waring also spent much time in the Louvre Museum studying Monet, Manet, Corot, and Cézanne. "I thought again and again how little of the beauty of really great pictures is revealed in the reproductions which we see and how freely and with what ease the great masters paint." Forced to leave Europe at the start of WWI, she continued to work at Cheyney and did so for more than thirty years. There, she founded the school's art and music departments. In her later years at Cheyney, she was the director of the art programs. After the end of the war, Wheeler Waring returned to Paris in June 1924. Her second trip to Paris was regarded to be a turning point in her style as well as her career. Wheeler Waring described this time as the most purely art-motivated period in her life, the "only period of uninterrupted life as an artist with an environment and associates that were a constant stimulus and inspiration." For approximately four months, Wheeler Waring lived in France, absorbing French culture and lifestyle. She began to paint many portraits, and in October enrolled to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére, where she studied painting. During this trip, she exhibited her work in Parisian art galleries for the first time. Upon return to the United States, Wheeler Waring was among the artists displayed in the country's first exhibition of African-American art, held in 1927 by the William E. Harmon Foundation. That same year she married her husband, public school educator, Walter Waring. She was commissioned by the Harmon Foundation to do portraits of prominent African Americans and chose some associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Her work was soon displayed in American institutions, including the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She currently has portraits in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
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