Tattered and Torn (1886) by American artist Alfred Kappes depicts an African American woman dressed in rags, holding a lit match in her extended hand, so decrepit she can barely light her pipe. Unlike other artists of the period who sentimentalized African American subjects, Kappes painted with frankness and sensitivity the reality of his subjects’ poverty while showing us what the underside of the Gilded Age looked like.
With poignant and beautifully executed realism, a sparsely furnished room is presented with an alcove at back left and small shaded window at back right of center where two figures sit in shadow near a window. The older African American woman stands, in a suspended moment before lighting a pipe, in front center under direct light head wrapped in white cloth, eyes closed, both arms up, match in one hand and pipe in the other, dressed in very tattered and patched light colored dress, torn faded red jacket and boots.
The mature woman looks utterly exhausted, but dominates the canvas. Despite her exhaustion, she is concentrating carefully on lighting this match to light her pipe as though it were one small pleasure in life.
The same female model appears in Kappes’s “Rent Day” (1885), a painting of a landlord collecting rent from a black couple. “Tattered and Torn” and “Rent Day,” which the artist may have intended as companion pieces, were both shown at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Known primarily for his genre scenes depicting blacks, Kappes was the son of a German carpenter. He won the National Academy of Design's First Hallgarten Prize in 1887 for the painting “Buckwheat Cakes.” Although he was later disqualified for being over the age of 35, the award resulted in his election as an Associate member. A similar favorable reaction to his 1894 entry “Voudoo led to his election as an Academician, but he died that year (at the age of 44) before receiving this status.
“Tattered and Torn” by Alfred Kappes (American) - Oil on canvas / 1886 - Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton, Massachusetts) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #AlfredKappes #Kappes #AmericanArt #artwork #fineart #AmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArt #Realism #poverty #history
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