2014 • 46.75″ x 17.5″
acrylic, spray paint on used fence pickets
(After the portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton by Thomas Lawrence)
I loved the way the paintings and sculptures of the boy in the blue suit and the girl in the pink dress had a pop culture name of “Blue Boy” and “Pinkie.” Growing up, I remember seeing them in the sleeping quarters and powder rooms of women of a certain age, but none of us remember them having any impression other than an un-articulated feeling about those women’s poor taste. Later, when I found out everyone had similar experiences, it was great fun discovering just how famous these images were. I always wonder though…who among the people I meet today are the children of such women, or do they themselves have representations of these long dead children in their master bedrooms?
Wikipedia says:
Pinkie is the traditional title for a portrait of 1794 by Thomas Lawrence in the permanent collection of the Huntington Library at San Marino, California where it hangs opposite The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough. The title now given it by the museum is Sarah Barrett Moulton: Pinkie.
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