Girl in Red Dress

Laura Wheeler Waring was inspired to create a record of what she described as "interesting characters of the American Negro in paint." She made this decision after receiving the Harmon Gold Award in 1927, the highest prize granted by the Harmon Foundation to recognize African American achievement in fine arts. In the mid-1920s Waring traveled to France, where she had a solo exhibition featuring 12 portraits of African American women of varied ages and styles.

Approximately ten years later, Waring painted the hauntingly beautiful portrait Girl in Red Dress. The adolescent’s provocative dress reveals the influence of Waring’s studies in France as well as the work of leading American artist Robert Henri, who believed that painting should reflect the unvarnished realities of American life.

This oil painting depicts a young woman in a red off-the-shoulder dress. Wearing long red fingerless gloves, a large black ring, an earring and makeup, she sits with one knee drawn up to her chest. Her clasped hands rest on her raised knee. Although she faces the viewer, her gaze is lowered, her head slightly bent forward. Her dark, wavy hair, parted on the left, hangs to her shoulders. The painting is signed by the artist and has a gallery label affixed to the back.