American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists Featuring the Collection of Virginia and Stuart Peltz

Exhibited

"The Paintings of John Folinsbee," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey, October 30, 1982–January 9, 1983, no. 2 (as Mother and Child (Ruth and Beth).

"The Pennsylvania Impressionists: An American Tradition," Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 6–August 15, 1998; also Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tennessee, January–February 22, 1998; also Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, March 28–May 10, 1998 (traveling exhibition).

Literature

Brian H. Peterson, Pennsylvania Impressionism, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown and University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2002, p. 128, no. 41 (illustrated, as Artist's Wife and Child).

Kirsten M. Jensen, Folinsbee Considered, Hudson Hills Press, Manchester 2013, p. 281, fig. 3, cat. no. 834 (illustrated).

Note

John Folinsbee and his wife Ruth Baldwin welcomed their first baby, Elizabeth, in February 1917. The present work depicts the artist's wife holding baby Beth in her arms, shortly after her birth. Because he had contracted polio seven years earlier, Folinsbee did not think he could have children. The present painting, Mrs. Peltz' favorite, proves the contrary in a triumphant manner, and showcases the artist's burgeoning love and tenderness for his newborn daughter. The family would welcome a second daughter, Joan, two years later in July 1919.

While Folinsbee preferred to paint landscapes, he executed some portraits, mostly of the people he loved or revered. The present work, the artist's first-known portrait, is an important example; several other double portraits of his two daughters would follow, as well as his famous portrait of his once master, Edward Redfield, two years before his death (1964, Private Collection).