5399

Study portrait

Mrs Theodore P. Grosvenor, née Anita Strawbridge 1931

Half-length in profile to the right, full face to the viewer, her neck and shoulders bare and draped-in a blue wrap, her right hand raised to her breast

Oil on canvas, 89 x 68.5 cm (35 x 27 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1931. XI.

Sitters’ Book II, f. 70: Anita S. Grosvenor. Nov. 24th 1931

The Preservation Society of Newport County, USA

De László painted this portrait during a visit to Philadelphia in 1931, while staying at Ardrossan, the Pennsylvania country home of Colonel and Mrs Robert L. Montgomery, close friends and neighbours of the Strawbridge family. He also painted the Montgomerys’ daughter, Charlotte Ives Montgomery [11220], while there. De László had previously painted a portrait of the sitter’s mother, Mrs Robert E. Strawbridge, in London, in 1915 [7221].

De László noted in his diary on 26 October 1931 that, while visiting Mrs Robert E. Strawbridge, he met “her pretty blond daughter.” On the afternoon of 23 November, he began her portrait, which he finished the next day after the second sitting.^[1]

Anita Strawbridge was born at Bryn Mawr, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 6 July 1902 to Robert Early Strawbridge (1871-1963) and his wife Anita Berwind (1875-1942). Her father was the son of the co-founder of the Philadelphia department store Strawbridge and Clothier. From about 1905 until the outbreak of the First World War, the family was frequently in England, where they were well known supporters of the Cottesmore Hunt near Melton Mowbray.

On 14 June 1923 the sitter married Theodore Phinney Grosvenor (1897-1985), son of William and Rose (Phinney) Grosvenor, and later a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve. They had three daughters, Anita (born 1924), Pamela (born 1925) and Rose (born 1928), and a son Robert.

Anita, who lived in Newport and Scottsdale most of her life, was active in community affairs and served on the board of directors of the Newport Red Cross during the Second World War. She was the founder of Newport Tunes and Talents, which provided music scholarships for young students, and was a member of several local societies, including the Clambake Club.

The sitter died on 25 December 1987.

PROVENANCE:

Gifted by the sitter to The Preservation Society of Newport County, 1985

EXHIBITED:

•Newportraits: Three Centuries of Newport People, Newport Art Museum, USA, 7 June -26 September 1992, no 184

LITERATURE:

•Newportraits: Newport Art Museum, University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, 2000, pp. 26, 301; ill. pl. 184, p. 302

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection, 26 October entry, p. 303, 23 November entry, p. 331; 24 November entry, p. 332

MD 2013