Frank Weston Benson, Margaret ("Gretchen") Strong, c. 1909. Oil on canvas, 76.8 × 64.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States of America.
In the warmer months, American Impressionist artist Frank Weston Benson and his family spent time at their vacation home in North Haven, Maine. One of the memorable works he created there was Summer. The group portrait of four young women in white dresses features two of the artist's daughters, one of their friends, and his seventeen-year-old niece Margaret "Gretchen" Strong. Margaret's parents were so happy with their daughter's portrayal in the work that they asked Benson to paint her again, individually.
In the commissioned work Benson repeats Margaret's pose of sitting amid burnt grass interspersed with chamomile, turned away from the sea, and looking up the hill towards the other girls. He shows her face in profile framed by her red hair. Margaret's solo portrait differs in two key ways from the version in Summer: the artist used cooler blue tones for the Atlantic in the background and raised the horizon line in the distance so it would not cut into her profile.
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