[Maginel Wright Enright?] Barney
Palm Beach Life Yachting Cover Illustration
American: 1929
Signed "Barney 29" lower left
Gouache on illustration board
19.5 x 19.5 inches, overall
15.25 x 14.75 inches, image
14.25 x 14.25 inches, image site size as matted
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.
Palm Beach Life Original Illustration Art
Barney, 1929
Barney, 1929
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Sailors tend to a boat as three passengers sit near the stern, enjoying the ride. This original artwork was painted in 1929 in an illustrational style influenced by Art Deco for a cover of the magazine Palm Beach Life, The Weekly Journal of Society, dated February 18, 1930. The artwork was used again by the magazine in their February 26, 1952 issue, shown below. The magazine's name is painted on the stern of the boat.
The passengers are two men in crisp yachting uniforms and caps, and a woman dressed in a white skirt and red top and hat, waving gaily. The boat is painted in dramatic perspective, leaving a colorful pointillist wake as seagulls swoop overhead. The linear details of the rigging add realism and sense of motion.
This work is signed "Barney," and while definitive attribution cannot be made, it is possibly by Maginel Wright Enright Barney (1881-1966), a prolific illustrator, producing children's book illustrations, posters and magazine covers over several decades. In The Illustrator in America, 1880-1980, authors Walt and Roger Reed credit her with revolutionizing the quality of illustrations in children's readers. Barney was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright's younger sister, and married twice, first to Enright and then to Barney. She is the subject of an exhibition at the Zimmerli Museum of Rutgers University held in the fall of 2003. The style of this painting is consistent with the use of bright flat color combined with line that characterizes her work, as well as the sense of warmth and whimsy. However, she generally signed her full name in block letters, not her last name in cursive as appears on this piece. As Palm Beach Life ceased publication in 1994, we were unable to get more information to verify whether this is her work, however, we know she did produce other magazine covers during this period.
Reference:
"Maginel Wright Enright Barney." Women's Children Book Illustrators. http://www.ortakales.com (26 September 2003).