Study of Helen Corson Hovenden Seated

[Front]

Thomas Hovenden depicts his wife, the artist Helen Corson, in this study. The two met while living and painting in the Breton village of Pont-Aven, France, in the mid-1870s. During the winter of 1878, after they had moved to Paris, Corson served as a model for several of Hovenden’s paintings, including Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady, also in Woodmere’s collection.

 

The couple eventually returned to the United States, and in 1880 they married. Corson’s family barn in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, served as their studio. This drawing, like Hovenden’s Studies for The Favorite Falcon, also at the Woodmere, shows us how Hovenden captured his wife in pencil studies.

 

[Back]

Study of a Man's Head, date unknown

Graphite on paper, 15 in. x 12 ¼ in.

Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Mr. Stiles Tuttle Colwill, 2018