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Angna Enters

Angna Enters
Usage Conditions Apply
Artist
John French Sloan, 2 Aug 1871 - 8 Sep 1951
Sitter
Angna Enters, 28 Apr 1907 - 25 Feb 1989
Date
1925
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Stretcher: 81.9 x 66 x 3.8cm (32 1/4 x 26 x 1 1/2")
Frame: 91.4 × 76.2 × 6.4cm (36 × 30 × 2 1/2")
Topic
Home Furnishings\Furniture\Seating\Chair
Interior\Domestic
Home Furnishings\Curtain
Angna Enters: Female
Angna Enters: Visual Arts\Artist\Sculptor
Angna Enters: Literature\Writer
Angna Enters: Visual Arts\Artist\Painter
Angna Enters: Visual Arts\Artist\Cartoonist
Angna Enters: Visual Arts\Artist\Illustrator
Angna Enters: Performing Arts\Performer\Dancer
Angna Enters: Performing Arts\Performer\Mime
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the John Sloan Memorial Foundation
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number
NPG.80.132
Exhibition Label
Born New York City
The multi-talented Angna Enters earned distinction as a painter, sculptor, and writer. She won her greatest acclaim, however, as a dancer-mime. Following her New York stage debut in 1923, she went on to found her own dance company and to perform in more than 150 compositions of her own devising. Once seen, a critic declared in 1926, Enters was “never to be forgotten.” At the heart of her talent, wrote another observer, lay a power to make “the most trivial and ordinary events and characters significant.”
Artist John Sloan first encountered Enters as a pupil in one of his classes at New York’s Art Students League. In his portrait of her, the expressiveness of the posture and arms were clearly intended to evoke his subject’s gift for mime. The black dress that Enters wears was typical of her somber offstage garb. She reserved bright colors, she said, for her performances.
Nacida en la ciudad de New York
Artista de múltiples talentos, Angna Enters se distinguió como pintora, escultora y escritora. Sin embargo, fue en el baile y la pantomima que obtuvo sus mayores éxitos. Después de debutar en New York en 1923, fundó su propia compañía de baile, con la que interpretó más de 150 coreografías creadas por ella. Quien la veía actuar “nunca podía olvidarla”, afirmó un crítico en 1926. Su talento esencial, escribió otro observador, era el poder de dar “significado a los sucesos y personajes más comunes y triviales”.
El artista John Sloan conoció a Enters cuando ella tomó una de sus clases en la Liga de Estudiantes de Arte de New York. En este retrato Sloan enfatiza la expresividad de la postura y los brazos para evocar el don de su modelo para la pantomima. El vestido negro es típico de los atuendos un tanto sombríos que usaba Enters fuera del escenario. Decía que reservaba los colores vivos para sus actuaciones.
Provenance
Helen Farr Sloan, New York; John Sloan Memorial Foundation, New York; gift 1980 NPG
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Location
Currently not on view