c. 1920s
oil on canvas, 20 X 14″
Signed upper right

Lilian Westcott studied at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston on a scholarship from the Hartford Art Society. She married her teacher, Phillip Hale, and became a mother yet managed to have a serious and successful career as an artist. It was an uncommon story in her day.

A century earlier, a picture like this would have been unthinkable. Not only had attitudes toward women undergone a sea change, but so had art. Whether in interior views or landscapes, American Impressionists wanted their pictures to be intimate and inviting. Close viewpoints, off-center compositions, cropped edges, compressed space, bright colors, and sketch-like brushwork were among the ways in which they achieved their goals.