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Alice Dunbar Nelson

Alice Dunbar Nelson
Artist
Laura Wheeler Waring, 1887 - 1948
Sitter
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Date
1927
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Stretcher: 62.4 × 51.4cm (24 9/16 × 20 1/4")
Frame: 73.5 × 63.3 × 6.7cm (28 15/16 × 24 15/16 × 2 5/8")
Topic
Interior
Home Furnishings\Furniture\Seating\Chair
Costume\Headgear\Hat
Costume\Dress Accessory\Glove\Gloves
Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Female
Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Literature\Writer\Poet
Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Journalism and Media\Journalist
Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Activist
Portrait
Place
United States\Pennsylvania\Philadelphia
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.2016.125
Exhibition Label
Born New Orleans, Louisiana
This portrait represents the network of friendships established among prominent African American women in the wake of the black women’s club movement, which grew in visibility with the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. Women, including Laura Wheeler Waring and Alice Dunbar-Nelson, came together from a variety of backgrounds to combat negative stereotypes and fight for basic rights. Waring, an established artist who had studied in France between the two world wars, painted Dunbar-Nelson’s portrait in Philadelphia the year she married Walter E. Waring, a Lincoln University professor. By 1927 Dunbar-Nelson was a prominent political activist and journalist and was in demand as a public speaker. The portrait exudes the confidence and self-possession of two accomplished, intellectual women whose friendship helped advance the rights of both women and African Americans.
Nacida en New Orleans, Louisiana
Este retrato evidencia la red de amistades que surgió entre prominentes mujeres de raza negra a raíz de la movilización de los clubes de mujeres afroamericanas, que consolidarían su visibilidad con la fundación de la Asociación Nacional de Mujeres de Color en 1896. Estas damas de trasfondos diversos, entre ellas Laura Wheeler Waring y Alice Dunbar-Nelson, se unieron para combatir los estereotipos negativos y luchar por derechos fundamentales. Waring, artista establecida que entre las dos guerras mundiales había estudiado en Francia, pintó el retrato de Dunbar-Nelson en Philadelphia el año en que contrajo matrimonio con Walter E. Waring, un profesor de la Universidad Lincoln. Hacia 1927, Dunbar-Nelson era una reconocida activista política y periodista, muy cotizada como conferenciante. El retrato irradia la confianza y asertividad de dos intelectuales de grandes méritos cuya amistad contribuyó a adelantar la causa de los derechos de las mujeres y los afroamericanos.
[DD1]We will not get a final accession number until FY17.
Provenance
The artist; by descent to Pauline A. Young; Madeline Murphy Rabb (the artist’s great niece); purchased 2016 NPG
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Exhibition
20th Century Americans: 1900-1930 (re-installation 2012)
On View
NPG, South Gallery 322
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