Writing the Krisheim News, El Oued

Oakley made this watercolor in 1928, while traveling with Gertrude and George Woodward in North Africa. Here, George sits upright in bed, reading and writing. The exotic environment of the hotel room, with its curving shapes and colors, suggest Gertrude’s poetical thoughts and George’s intensity of focus as he writes back to the family estate, Krisheim, in Chestnut Hill.

In addition to her trip with the Woodwards, Oakley made several journeys to North Africa. Her aunt owned a villa in the city of Tangier in Morocco, and she visited there frequently, sketching the landscape and people.