Emma Fordyce MacRae

(American, 1887-1974)

The Decision (The Red Geranium)

oil on canvas laid down to board

signed EMMA FORDYCE MACRAE (upper left)

36 1/8 x 32 1/4 inches.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Proceeds from the painting's sale will go directly to Alzheimer's Research UK, Britain's leading dementia research charity, and will help fund research on Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia.

Provenance:

The Artist

The Estate of the Artist

By descent in the family of the Artist

Private Collection, United Kingdom

Exhibited:

Boston, The Boston Art Club, n.d. (per sticker verso)

New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, n.d., no. 999 (as The Red Geranium per sticker verso)

Lot Note:

In this painting, Emma Fordyce MacRae explores the theme of women in interiors, a motif deeply rooted in art history and especially prominent in twentieth-century American painting. The composition features two women set against a windowed interior, arranged with the stillness and clarity characteristic of MacRae’s style. As is typical of her figurative work, these are not traditional portraits, but constructed scenes in which the women serve a role similar to the flowers in her still lifes: arranged forms within a carefully composed space.

MacRae’s sensitive use of color is evident in the soft tonal transitions and muted palette, heightened by the touches of vivid red and orange in the apples and the geranium on the windowsill. These vibrant notes create focal points and reflect her interest in color orchestration (sometimes harmonious, sometimes contrasting) echoing the influence of Hardesty Maratta’s pigment theories, which valued saturation and intensity over value.

The artist’s sculptural simplification of form, seen especially in the faces and hands, aligns with her break from the academic realism of the Boston School. While MacRae's friend Ivan Olinsky painted women in interiors in a traditional vein, MacRae’s approach leans toward modern clarity, with clearly modeled yet understated forms. Ultimately, the painting embodies her signature blend of formal restraint, symbolic resonance, and painterly design, placing female figures into spaces that are at once personal and composed, decorative and contemplative.