Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Isabel S. Kurtz in memory of her father, Charles M. Kurtz
Copyright Status:
Copyright Undetermined
Accession Number:
B1991.3
Gallery Label:
Stuart Park painted this picture for his friend Charles M. Kurtz, a prominent American art critic who would later become the founding director of the Albright Art Gallery (now the Albright–Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, New York. Kurtz did much in America to promote the careers of Park and other artists associated with the Glasgow Boys, a rebellious group of young artists who emerged in Scotland in the early 1880s to challenge the conservative art establishment of the day. Rejecting the subject matter and techniques of their academic elders at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, the Glasgow Boys developed a naturalistic style of painting strongly influenced by the Barbizon and Hague Schools, as well as French impressionism. Born in Worcestershire but raised in Ayrshire, Park trained at the Glasgow School of Art and in Paris under Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, Gustave Boulanger, and Fernand Cormon. After returning to Scotland, he began his career as a portrait painter but became better known—and more successful—as a painter of flowers. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016