Date: 1920
Size: 12 x 17 inches
Artist: Kendall, William Sargeant
The ennui of the man in the poster is palpable, as his high-class bearing - without knowing anything about him, one just KNOWS that he must be from a prominent family, probably Eastern seaboard, maybe Boston, and that he is thinking about some very important matters which pertain to business, or family, or family business. The cut of his clothing, the manner of his bearing, all of it speaks bespoke ... and mirrors the elegance of his class, and of the artist who conceived him, William Sargeant Kendall, a friend and colleague of Charles Dana Gibson.
Of the artist it has been written: William Sergeant Kendall was born in New York in 1869 and trained at the Art Students League and with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Like most painters of his generation, he went to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts, an academic training that never left him despite his later fascination with the luminous effects of Impressionism. His subjects relate stylistically to the Boston school. His subjects were most notably mothers and children as well as female nudes. He taught at the Art Students League.