Made in France in the early 1910s, this portrait turns a society commission into a study of velocity with glamour as momentum. Italian artist Giovanni Boldini’s signature “swish” (those long, skating strokes and dissolving contours) gives Mrs. Peter Cooper Hewitt (New York–born heiress and social figure Lucy Bond Work) a kind of modern autonomy: she isn’t contained by the frame so much as she seems to pass through it. She is woman with light skin pictured full-length, standing and stepping forward as if caught in a gust of wind. Her short, softly waved brown hair frames a calm, direct gaze. Her cheeks are flushed warm pink. Lucy wears a pale, off-the-shoulder white and silvery gown painted in loose, flickering strokes that make the fabric look weightless and in motion. A long strand of pearls drops in looping arcs down her torso, and a cluster of pink roses is pinned near her waist, the petals rendered with quick, juicy touches of red and blush. Her right arm lifts a sheer wrap or scarf, which blurs into the sky like a ribbon of mist. Her left arm relaxes down, and a ring flashes green on her finger. The background is an airy landscape of mauve, gray, and peach with sweeping diagonals of ground beneath her feet. To the right, a vivid patch of green and scattered coral-pink flowers echoes the roses on her dress. Boldini’s brushwork softens edges and elongates lines so Lucy feels elegant, poised, and actively moving through space rather than posed in stillness. The pearls and roses signal wealth and cultivated femininity, yet they’re treated as lively marks like ornament becoming energy, not restraint. Lucy appears less as a fixed emblem of status than as a presence in motion. She is confident, lightly smiling, and centered as the force that sets the whole painted world of sky, fabric, and flowers into radiant drift.

"Portrait of Mrs. Peter Cooper Hewitt" by Giovanni Boldini (Italian) - Oil on canvas / c. 1911–1913 - RISD Museum (Providence, Rhode Island) #WomenInArt #GiovanniBoldini #Boldini #RISDMuseum #PortraitPainting #BelleEpoque #GildedAge #SocietyPortrait #art #artText #artwork #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign

Made around 1930, this self-portrait by American artist Esther Pressoir places modern self-fashioning at the center of the composition. It’s not a flattering display, but a clear-eyed record of mood, posture, and control. Smoking, then a charged marker of sophistication and transgression, becomes a small, deliberate gesture, echoed by looping smoke and the painting’s circling brushstrokes. The young woman artist with light skin crouches low, her body folded into a compact, almost protective pose. She has short, dark, softly waved hair and strong brows. Her eyes look out from under heavy lids, almost meeting ours with a steady, unsentimental calm. Her lips are painted a vivid red, and warm peach and pink tones model her face and bare shoulder. A thin-strap, sleeveless garment (taupe and dusty rose, edged with quick red lines) wraps her torso and falls in loose folds around her legs. One arm hooks over a raised knee, while the other hand extends downward, holding a small cigarette between long fingers. To the right, pale rings of smoke rise and fade into a turbulent field of grays, browns, and sandy beige. The background is built from broad, circular sweeps of paint, like wind spiraling around her figure. At the bottom edge, a black heeled shoe peeks out, anchoring the pose. Across the surface, the brushwork stays sketchy, energetic, and layered so the Pressoir’s outline seems simultaneously drawn and dissolving. Pressoir, born in Philadelphia and raised in Woonsocket, and a 1923 Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) graduate, was in her late twenties at the time she painted this presentation of herself. The work shows an artist testing how frank a woman’s image can be. She folds inward, yet refuses to look away and claims the right to be seen on her own terms.

“Self Portrait (Smoking)” by Esther Pressoir (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1930 - RISD Museum (Providence, Rhode Island) #WomenInArt #EstherPressoir #Pressoir #RISD #RISDMuseum #SelfPortrait #WomenSmoking #artText #art #BlueskyArt #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists

American artist John White Alexander launched his career as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly, but like other young artists of his generation he advanced his training in Paris. “The Blue Bowl” was shown in Paris and Vienna before appearing at RISD’s annual Autumn Exhibition of 1904. Alexander’s sophisticated style was unique in America, presenting feminine subjects in flattened and asymmetric spaces combined with a fluid technique. More than the Delft bowl of the title, the painting's true subject is the back of the model's gown, spread out as she bends to observe a fallen bloom. Executed with thin washes of color on roughly textured canvas, its sinuous curves and subtle patterning represent the height of Art Nouveau costume, transformed by the artist into an example of daring pictorial design. A woman of fair complexion, her dark hair partially hidden beneath a wide, azure blue headband, has her gaze directed downward at a rather large, shallow bowl containing flowers in her hands. Her posture is slightly bent, suggesting a gentle intimacy with what she holds. Only a small portion of her face is visible; her soft features suggest youthfulness. She is dressed in a long pale-sage gown that drapes beautifully around her slender form. The soft and delicate fabric, with a subtle pattern of scattered pale blue and darker green details, suggestive of flowers or leaves. The gown features a ruffled bodice and falls into many soft folds creating a visually stunning effect of movement and texture. A dark teal or blue sash cinches her waist, adding a touch of color contrast. The canvas is technically a characteristic expression of the method which Alexander adopted to avoid the elaboration of detail which leads to excess of pigment: "using a coarse absorbent canvas and painting with a turpentine or petroleum medium, so that the roughly unglazed surface helps to avoid monotony and heightens the interest of every variation of brush work."

“The Blue Bowl“ by John White Alexander (American) - Oil on canvas / 1898 - Rhode Island School of Design (Providence) #WomanInArt #art #artwork #artText #JohnWhiteAlexander #RISD #AmericanArt #AmericanArtist #BlueskyArt #OilPainting #bskyart #artbsky #PortraitofaWoman #RhodeIslandSchoolOfDesign

1968 Swietlan Kraczyna (b. 1940) Ink Drawing, “Primo Peccato”

hakervintage.etsy.com/listing/4317...

#swietlankraczyna #florence #italy #risd #rhodeislandschoolofdesign #1960s #midcentury #inkdrawing #ilprimopeccato #originalsin #raphael #raffaello #biblicalscenes #figurativeart #angels

Those Three Little Words (2025) [7 min] by Madelyn Kieh | #USA

#2D #2DAnimation #AnimatedShort #AnimatedShortOfTheDay #Animation #Cats #Life #Grief #Cat #RISD #RhodeIslandSchoolOfDesign #Love #Pets

Painter #DannyFerrell was born in Flint, Michigan but spent his formative years in rural, central Pennsylvania. In 2014 he received a BFA from #PennStateUniversity in drawing and painting & his MFA in painting from the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign in 2016.

Original post on flipboard.social

"To Every Orange Tree," a show focused on anti-imperialist and liberation movements by Rhode Island School of Design students, staff and local community members, has been shuttered, four days into its run. This appears to have been done in response to accusations by the StopAntisemitism X […]

Painter #DannyFerrell was born in Flint, Michigan, but spent his formative years in rural, central Pennsylvania. In 2014, he received a BFA from #PennStateUniversity in drawing and painting & his MFA in painting from the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign in 2016.

Rhode Island-born painter #DominicAvant (b.1965) earned his BFA at #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. He now lives and paints in Florida with his wife and family and teaches at #RinglingCollegeofArt.#contemporarypainting

Guy Pène Du Bois studied under the Ashcan School painter Robert Henri, but rather than following his teacher’s exhortation to paint ordinary people and places, Du Bois gravitated toward high society. His portraits of chic flappers, elegant matrons, and powerful businessmen capture the glamour, complacency, and disquiet of New York during the Roaring Twenties. With a satirist’s eye for social foibles and pretensions, Du Bois depicted the affluent at leisure— at art galleries, racetracks, cafés, and the theater. In this Portrait of a Woman, Du Bois presents a young modern woman of the early 1930s relaxing comfortably, yet confidently in a wooden chair against a simple peach background so that our focus is entirely on the sitter. Her beauty is simple and refined with rosy cheeks and fire-red lipstick against her fair skin in an almost expressionless moment of introspection or thought. A stylish desert-sand colored bucket cloche hat with brown band is pulled down tight hiding her right eye from our view. To complete her modern look, she wears thick, yet voguish beige-brown pants capped by a thick leather belt as she authoritatively crosses her right leg over her left knee. A soft teal and caramel sweater top covers most of her off-white colored shirt and light taupe tie or scarf. This look might of been controversial for some women, but there is nothing, but confidence and peace with this woman in her fashion and life choices.

Portrait of a Woman by Guy Pène Du Bois (American) - Oil on canvas / 1932 - Rhode Island School of Design (Providence) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #GuyPèneDuBois #artwork #fineart #risd #womensart #portrait #portraitofawoman #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign #americanart #americanartist #chic #style

This post impressionist work was painted by Vincent van Gogh in July 1890 in my favorite french town Auvers-sur-Oise. This beautiful work is in the collection of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA.

#vincentvangogh #auverssuroise #france #vangogh #rhodeislandschoolofdesign

Rhode Island born artist #DominicAvant (b.1965)earned his BFA at #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. He now lives and paints in Florida with his wife and family and teaches at #RinglingCollegeofArt.hashtag#contemporarypainting #urieldana

Chicago-born artist #DanWitz (b.1957) received his BFA from #CooperUnion and also trained for two years at #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. #contemporarypainting hashtag#contemporaryart

Rhode Island-born painter #DominicAvant (b.1965)earned his BFA at #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. He now lives and paints in Florida with his wife and family and teaches at #RinglingCollegeofArt.#contemporarypainting

Painter #DannyFerrell was born in Flint, Michigan but spent his formative years in rural, central Pennsylvania. In 2014 he received a BFA from #PennStateUniversity in drawing and painting & his MFA in painting from the
#RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign in 2016
#contemporaryart #oilpainting

New York City artist #MiaBergeron (b.1980)was exposed to art daily through her parent's graphic design firm. She attended the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign but left to pursue a more traditional painting education. She has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.

New York artist #StevenKenny (b.1962) earned his BFA from the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. His final year of art school was spent studying independently in Rome

New York artist #StevenKenny (b.1962) earned his BFA from the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. His final year of art school was spent studying independently in Rome.

Seattle artist #AnnGale (b.1966) earned her BFA from #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign and her MFA from Yale. She is known for her portrait paintings done in an accumulation of small color patches. #oilpainting #womenartists

Canadian-born artist #AnnaWeyant (b.1995) earned her BFA in painting from the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. She relocated to New York and then studied painting at the #ChinaAcademyofArt in Hangzhou. Moving back to New York, she worked as a studio assistant while pursuing her practice.

Chicago-born street artist and realist painter #DanWitz (b.1957) attended #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign for 3 years before completing his BFA at #CooperUnion in New York City.

Steven Kenny was born in Peekskill, New York in 1962. He attended the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1984.

New York painter #StevenKenny (b.1962)attended the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1984. #surreal #mythical #fineart

South African painter #DeborahPoynton (b.1970)& grew up between South Africa, Britain, Switzerland & the US. She studied at the #RhodeIslandSchoolofDesign. #womenpainters #art #oilpaints #urieldana #uridev