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Romaine Brooks

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  • American Portrait Artist –

Romaine Brooks.

May 1, 1874 – December 7, 1970

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Romaine Brooks as

a baby, pictured with

her wealthy parents.

1874

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A self-portrait – dressed in manly clothes and a black high hat. 1923

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Brooks with

her lover – the writer Natalie Barney in Paris.

The two were together for more than 50 years.

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Brooks’ studio

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Brooks painted her wealthy friends, usually poets, artists, photographers or socialites.

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A severe palette with

various shades of gray.

Androgynous woman in

dark male clothes.

The person portrayed in

the painting was a

woman.

Peter, a Young English Girl (1923–1924), a portrait of the artist Gluck

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White Azaleas 1910 – her take on Manet’s famous Olympia

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Manet’s Olympia 1863

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Manet’s inspiration for Olympia – Titian’s Venus of Urbino 1538

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Restoration work before the show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum