Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Sir George Clausen, 1852–1944, British
Title:
Schoolgirls
Date:
1880
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
20 1/2 x 30 3/8 inches (52.1 x 77.2 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Signed and dated, lower left: ".G. Clausen. 1880."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1985.10.1
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
Victorian | school | posy | schoolgirls | youth | street vendor | walking | bonnet | selling | shawls | contrast | ribbon | flower (plant) | beggar | pupils | spectacles | apron (main garment) | buttons (fasteners) | girls | parasol | basket | daughters | eyeglasses | students | town | shawl | genre subject | gloves | book | yoke | umbrella | professor | milkmaid | street | elderly
Associated Places:
England | United Kingdom | London
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth (The Art Institute of Chicago, 2009-02-15 - 2009-05-10)

Figuring Women - The Female in Modern British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-03-28 - 2008-06-08)

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)
Publications:
Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977-1986 : Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1986, pp. 8, 9, 12, no. 6, col. pl. 12, N590.2 .A7 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Artist as narrator, nineteenth century narrative art in England and France. , Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, 2005, p.50, fig. 14, ND1452 G7 A77 2005 + (YCBA)

Susan P. Casteras, Images of Victorian womanhood in English art, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Rutherford, NJ, 1987, p. 45, fig. 24, N6767.5 V52 C37 11987 + (YCBA)

Christie's Sale Catalogue: Important British and Irish art : 11 June 2003, Christie's, Christie's (UK), London, 2003, p. 75, Lot 10, fig. 2, Sales Catalogues (YCBA)

Jay A. Clarke, Becoming Edvard Munch, influence, anxiety, and myth , The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Art Intitute of Chicago New Haven, CT, 2009, p. 41, fig. 42, NJ18 M96 C53 2009 (HAAS)

Robert Colls, This sporting life : sport and liberty in England, 1760-1960, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 2020, p. 369, pl. 7.2, GV706.35 .C65 2020 (LC) YCBA

Kristina Huneault, Flower-girls and fictions : Selling on the streets, RACAR : revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, v. 23, 1996, p. 56, fig. 4, N2 .R33 (LC)+ Oversize (LSF) Also available online via JSTOR.

Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, pp. 155, 168, no. 69, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)

Kenneth McConkey, George Clausen and the picture of English rural life, Atelier Books, Edinburgh, 2012, pp. 6 (color detail), 35, 36, 37, fig. 40, NJ18.C5652 M33 2012 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Duncan Robinson, Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977 - 1986, , Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, October 1986, p. 8, 9, 12, no. 6, col. pl. 12, N1 .B87 128:3 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Eric Shanes, Impressionist London, Abbeville Press, New York, 1994, p. 66, no. 49, ND470 S52 1994 + (YCBA)

Sotheby's sale catalogue : British Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture : 15 May 1985, Sotheby's, London, May 15, 1985, Lot 51, fig. 51, Auction Catalogues (YCBA) unbound cataogue

Denys Sutton, The Sale-Room, Apollo, vol. 122, August 1985, p. 165, N1 A54 122:1 OVERSIZE

The Hanover Gallery, Times (London), 20 November 1880, p. 11, Available online via Gale Primary Sources : The Times Digital Archive

What Makes the Thinker Think, Country Life, v. 178, July, 1985, p. 24, fig. 1, S3 C68 + (YCBA)

Adrienne Wong, Figuring women : the female in modern British art., , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2008, pp. 8-9, V 1925 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
London’s suburbs spread rapidly from 1850 on, with Londoners keen to escape the city for the pretense of something closer to nature. One such middle-class neighborhood was Haverstock Hill in South Hampstead, where the painter George Clausen rented a studio at a time when he was recording scenes of modern life in a manner inspired by the latest French painting. Here, a line of schoolgirls proceeds up the street, chaperoned by their schoolmistress. The apparent naturalness of the schoolgirls, and the unusual cropping of their figures, prompted a critic in the Times (London) to declare approvingly that "the whole composition seems so spontaneous and unforced." Yet Clausen subtly probes at Victorian proprieties. There is a hint of sexual frisson in the schoolgirls’ direct gazes, as well as lurking class conflict: the wealthy girls pointedly ignore the poor flower seller, while the aging milkmaid stares at them from the road with a look of undisguised contempt. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:5055