Portrait of Selina (Quin) Markham
1850
Medium
Black chalk with colored fabricated chalk, and traces of white gouache, on gray wove paper
Dimensions
25.4 × 17.6 cm (10 × 6 15/16 in.)
Classification
chalk
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
115220
Art Historical Context
Created in 1850, Elizabeth Murray’s *Portrait of Selina (Quin) Markham* offers an intimate glimpse into mid-nineteenth-century portraiture. Executed in black and colored chalks with delicate touches of white gouache on gray paper, the drawing measures just 10 by 7 inches, suggesting it was intended for private viewing rather than public display. The sitter, Selina Quin Markham, is presented with quiet dignity, her features softly modeled against the muted paper support. Murray’s choice of fabricated chalks allowed her to blend precise line work with subtle passages of color and tone, a techni...
About the Artist
Elizabeth Murray
Elizabeth Murray (1940–2007) was a pioneering American painter whose exuberant, sculptural canvases redefined the boundaries of abstraction in the late 20th century. Born on September 6, 1940, in Chicago to Irish-Catholic parents—a lawyer father and a mother who aspired to commercial art—she showed an early passion for drawing cartoons, nurtured by her mother's encouragement and high school art te...