Girl in a Red Dress

Seated demurely on an upholstered stool, the unidentified young sitter in Ammi Phillips’s Girl in a Red Dress holds a sprig of strawberry plant in one hand and a single ripe berry on its stem in the other. The rich color of the fruit, her double strand of coral beads, and her shoes, peeping out from beneath pleated pantaloons, all complement the brilliant red of her dress, which is echoed further in the patterned carpet. Both the girl and the dog lying at her feet gaze impassively at the viewer. The brightness of the figure’s flesh and clothing are set off by the dark background, a contrast that also draws attention to the graceful curves of the girl’s form encased in the tight-waisted dress with its full skirt and puffed sleeves. Her artificial pose strikes a ceremonial note appropriate to a formal portrait probably ordered from the artist by proud parents.

Phillips evidently painted Girl in a Red Dress during the five years when he worked alternately in Kent, Connecticut, and Amenia, New York. In those years he made four similar portraits of children, each featuring the young sitter wearing the distinctive bright red dress featured here. Following an American portraiture tradition established in the eighteenth century, he introduced objects with symbolic meaning. The recumbent dog, for example, represents fidelity of character. In an era when both small boys and girls wore dresses, the coral necklace, a charm against evil or illness, was a common device for identifying the wearer as female, and strawberries commonly symbolize youthful vitality. A coral bead necklace and strawberries also appear in Phillips’s portrait Mary Elizabeth Smith (TF 1992.56), in which the sitter’s pose closely mirrors that of the subject of Girl in a Red Dress.

The use of stock garments, props, and poses saved the artist time in his work. For buyers, resulting likenesses were both more affordable and more predictable—qualities valued by the provincial middle-class merchants and farmers among whom Phillips found his livelihood over a five-decade period that began around 1809. With the growing affluence of the era, more Americans indulged in the luxury of painted portraits of loved ones, in turn creating opportunities for numerous artists. Until the widespread adoption of daguerreotype photography in the 1840s, such artists as Erastus Salisbury Field, William Matthew Prior and Joseph Whiting Stock, in addition to Phillips, traveled between rural settlements in New England meeting the demand for painted likenesses that combined familiar conventions with evocations of their sitters’ individuality. Portraits of children such as Girl in a Red Dress were especially popular as statements of their families’ prosperity, social status, and hopes for the future.

Two Centuries of American Folk Painting, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, February 10–April 21, 1985.

Selections from the Permanent Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, July 19–September 14, 1985.

Children in Red, Museum of American Folk Art, New York, New York (organizer). Venues: Museum of American Folk Art, New York, New York, December 10, 1985–February 16, 1986; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, March 7–April 27, 1986.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 1989.

Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of American Portraiture, Museum of American Folk Art, New York, New York (organizer). Venues: Museum of American Folk Art, New York, New York, January 15–April 30, 1994; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California, July 9–September 4, 1994; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 8–December 31, 1994. [exh. cat.]

Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–June 22, 1997.

Collection Cameo companion piece, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 2000.

Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.

New Faces, New Places: Recent Additions to the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 14–December 31, 2000.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–July 1, 2001.

American Classics: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 26–September 1, 2002.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003 (on exhibit extended run: November 2, 2002–March 2, 2003).

A Rich Simplicity: Folk Art from the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 7–September 21, 2003 (on exhibit partial run: June 7–August 25, 2003).

Copley to Cassatt: Masterworks from the Terra Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, September 5–December 7, 2003.

A Narrative of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 13–October 31, 2004.

The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915–1945, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington (organizer). Venues: Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, September 17, 2005–January 1, 2006; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington, February 4–May 21, 2006. [exh. cat]

Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation,Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, NY and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, IL (organizers). Venues: National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, February 9-April 5, 2007; Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China, April 30-June 30, 2007; Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, April 30-June 30, 2007 (Shanghai presentations ran concurrently); The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia, July 23–September 9, 2007; Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, October 15, 2007–April 27, 2008. [exh. cat.]

Forget Me Not, Intuit Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago (organizer). Venue: Intuit Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, September 10– Dec 30, 2010. [exh. brochure]

Angels and Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art. Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey (organizer). Venues: Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, September 12, 2012–January 6, 2013; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, February 16–May 26, 2013; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, June 28–September 30, 2013. [exh. cat.]

Christie's New York, New York (Sale FISKE-5810, January 26, 1985): lot 145. Text lot 145, p. 54; ill. lot 145, p. 55 (color).

Reif, Rita. "$682,000 Is Bid For a Portrait By Folk Artist." New York Times (January 27, 1985). Text and ill.

Carrol, Margaret. "Terra Shows Record-price Folk Painting." Chicago Tribune (March 10, 1985). Text and ill (black & white).

Lyon, Christopher. "American Folk Painting Comes of Age at Terra." Chicago Sun Times (March 10, 1985).

Ginna, Robert Emmett, Jr. "Two Little Girls Who Started a War." Yankee Magazine (July 1985): 76–79, 98–101. Text pp. 76–79, 98–101; ill. p. 76.

Black, Mary. "Ammi Phillips: The Country Painter's Method." The Clarion 11 (Winter 1986): 32–37.

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-11, p. 120 (color as Portrait of a Girl in a Red Dress).

Girl in a Red Dress, Ammi Phillips. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 1989. Ill. (black & white).

Hollander, Stacy C. Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of American Portraiture. (exh. cat., Museum of American Folk Art). New York: Museum of American Folk Art, 1994. Pl. xxxv, p. 40 (color).

Hollander, Stacy C. "Ammi Phillips Portraits." Country Living (March 1994): 66, 68. Ill. p. 66 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 46, 203; ill. pp. 4 (color), 47 (color), 203 (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 46, 203; ill. pp. 4 (color), 47 (color), 203 (black & white).

Kennedy, Elizabeth. "The Terra Museum of American Art." American Art Review (December 2002): 126–41. Text p. 134.

Davidson, Susan, ed. Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation. (exh. cat., National Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Museum). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Chinese and English version; citing English version). Text p. 96; ill. p. 113 (color).

Davidson, Susan, ed. Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation. (exh. cat., The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Russian version). Ill. p. 69 (color).

Davidson, Susan, ed. Art in the USA: 300 años de innovación. (exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Spanish version). Ill. p. 79 (color).

Stacy C. Hollander. The Seduction of Light: Ammi Phillips | Mark Rothko Compositions in Pink, Green, and Red. (exh. cat., American Folk Art Museum). New York, NY: American Folk Art Museum, 2008. Text p. 29 (checklist); Ill p. 27 (color).

Decade by Decade: The Good, The Bad, The Highs, The Lows. Art & Auction (September 2009): 72–78. Text, p. 73, ill., p. 73 (color).

Forget Me Not, exhibition checklist. Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, Illinois, 2010. Ill. n.p. (color).

Conner, Holly Pyne. Angels and Tomboys: Girlhood in Nineteenth-century American Art. (exh. cat. Newark Museum). Newark, New Jersey: Newark Museum, 2012. Text, pp. 32, 173 (checklist); ill. fig. 16, p. 33 (color).

Leggio, Gail. "Angels and Tomboys: Picturing the American Girl." American Arts Quarterly. 30:1 (Winter 2013): 23–31. Text, p. 23, ill. cover (color).

DeBerry, Linda. "Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art." American Art Review (July–August 2013): 92–97, Ill. p. 92 (color). Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 34; ill. p. 34 (color).