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Artist
Ellen Day Hale, 11 Feb 1855 - 10 Feb 1940
Sitter
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman, 3 Jul 1860 - 17 Aug 1935
Date
before 1880
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions
Panel: 40.6 x 30.2 x 0.6cm (16 x 11 7/8 x 1/4")
Frame: 51.4 x 40.6 x 5.4cm (20 1/4 x 16 x 2 1/8")
Topic
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman: Female
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Lecturer
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman: Literature\Writer\Novelist
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Feminist
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.83.162
Exhibition Label
Born Hartford, Connecticut
During an age when social conventions limited women’s opportunities, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman exposed the psychological distress behind the sentimental facade of domesticity. In 1892, she published “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story about a woman confined to a single attic room to recuperate from “temporary nervous depression” and “a slight hysterical tendency.” Those labels were often applied to women whose limited scope of activity led to extreme frustration and boredom. Gilman herself, while suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth in 1885, had been forced into a mind-numbing “rest cure,” which only worsened her condition.
Following her divorce in 1894, Gilman gained international recognition for her book Women and Economics (1898), which argues that women’s liberty is dependent on their economic freedom. Years earlier, before her rise to prominence, she sat for this portrait sketch by Ellen Day Hale, a pathbreaking artist who exemplified Gilman’s ideal of female independence.
Nacida en Hartford, Connecticut
En tiempos en que las convenciones sociales limitaban las oportunidades de las mujeres, la escritora Charlotte Perkins Gilman denunció los problemas psicológicos ocultos tras la fachada de la domesticidad. En 1892 publicó “El empapelado amarillo”, un cuento sobre una mujer confinada a un ático para recuperarse de una “depresión nerviosa temporal” y “una leve tendencia a la histeria”. Esos términos solían aplicarse a las mujeres cuyo estrecho ámbito de actividad les provocaba un alto grado de frustración y aburrimiento. Gilman misma, cuando tuvo una depresión posparto en 1885, fue sometida a una tediosa “cura de reposo” que terminó por agudizar su condición.
Tras su divorcio en 1894, Gilman logró fama internacional con su libro Las mujeres y la economía (1898), donde afirmó que la libertad de las mujeres depende de su autonomía económica. Años antes de su ascenso a la fama, posó para este boceto de Ellen Day Hale, artista de vanguardia que representaba el ideal de independencia femenina promovido por Gilman.
Provenance
The sitter; her daughter Katherine Stetson Chamberlin; her estate; purchased by (Bowater Gallery, Los Angeles); purchased 1983 NPG
