Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
before 1880
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
NPG.83.162
Tags
About this artwork
Born Hartford, Connecticut
Art Historical Context
This striking portrait by Ellen Day Hale captures Charlotte Perkins Gilman (then Stetson) as a young woman before 1880. Created in oil on canvas, the work belongs to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and offers a rare early glimpse of the future author, lecturer, and leading feminist thinker best known for her groundbreaking novella “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Hale, a pioneering female artist active in the late nineteenth century, was herself part of a generation of women pushing against social barriers in the art world. Her choice to portray Gilman—born in Hartford, Connecticut, and al...