Young Woman with Muff

Manipulating a tonal palette to create a familiar subject, Maurice Prendergast portrays emotion as well as form in the monotype Young Woman with Muff (CR1731).  Dressed in black and prepared for the cold, a young woman wears a large billowy hat, a twirling boa, and a gray fur muff.  Instead of walking, she leans against a wall, grasping the hem of her skirt in her hand. The subtlety of brushwork in the figure's clothing and the background portray a stillness that seems full of possibilities.  Here, the artist has articulated facial features with more definition than his usual practice, using graphite to create detail.  The young woman appears pensive, perhaps waiting for someone or for something to happen.

  The obvious reticulated surface of Young Woman with Muff indicates that Prendergast, despite his comment to the contrary, used printer's ink rather than oil paints to create at least some of his monotypes.  Interestingly, the grainy appearance adds texture and interest to an otherwise visually quiet image.

 Fashionably dressed young women are central to Prendergast's art and are prominent in his monotypes throughout the ten years he produced such prints.  Of the approximate 200 extant monotypes, 30 percent portray a solitary, young female figure.  Many elements in Young Woman with Muff are selected from the artist's list of fashionable accessories: a walking outfit with a fitted jacket, gloves, a fur muff, and an elaborately decorated hat.  But most importantly the subject of this monotype is illustrative of the artist's demand for a sense of movement, typically achieved with petticoats emerging from swishing skirts.

Young Woman with Muff exemplifies a specific type from the "Solitary Woman" series in which the background is a drab monochromatic color.  Other types in the series employ a narrative setting or are unworked with the figure appearing to float on the surface.  Critically, the artist's earliest monotypes, identified by his brother Charles Prendergast, portray two types from the "Solitary Woman" series: Lady in a Pale Green Dress, Blue Hat and Scarf (Private Collection, CR 1563) has a drab overall colored background and Esplanade (TF 1999.109, CR 1564) has a narrative scene.  It is useful to compare the static envelope of space of Young Woman with Muff to the spatial depth of Lady with a Muff (TF 1992.91, CR 1726) provided by its narrative setting, and to the floating figure in Lady with Handkerchief (TF 1992.90, CR 1571). For more information, see Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (1990), to which the CR numbers for the monotypes noted above refer.

Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast from the Terra Museum of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venues: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., January 27–April 14, 1985; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–June 30, 1985; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, July 12–September 8, 1985; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, September 20–November 17, 1985; Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan, November 24, 1985–January 19, 1986; Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, January 28–February 24, 1986; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, May 13–June 15, 1986; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 23–August 24, 1986; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, September 2–October 26, 1986; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, November 2–30, 1986; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 13, 1986–February 15, 1987; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, June 21–July 31, 1987; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, August 8–September 27, 1987; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, October 4–November 5, 1987; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1987–January 7, 1988; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, January 20–March 22, 1988; Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 9–May 29, 1988. [exh. cat.]

American Treasures: Chase, Whistler and the Prendergasts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1996–January 5, 1997.

The Decorative Form: The Aesthetic Movement, Arts & Crafts and the Asian Influence in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 16–December 5, 1999.

Portrait of a Lady : peintures et photographies américaines en France, 1870–1915 (Portrait of a Lady: American Paintings and Photographs in France, 1870–1915), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France (organizers). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, April 1–July 14, 2008; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, September 25, 2008–January 5, 2009 (exhibited in Giverny). [exh. cat.]

Sotheby's New York, New York (Sale 5235, November 8- 9, 1984): lot 96. Ill. lot 96 (black & white).

Clark, Carol, Nancy Mowll Mathews and Gwendolyn Owens. Maurice Brazil Prendergast; Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné. Munich, Germany, and Williamstown, Massachusetts: Prestel-Verlag and The President and Trustees of Williams College, 1990. No. 1731, p. 623; ill. no. 1731, p. 622 (black & white).

Vanessa Lecomte, editor. Portrait of a Lady : peinture et photographies américains (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny and Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2008. Text (checklist) p. 95.