TitleWaifs
Artist
Charles Frederick Ulrich
(American, 1858 - 1908)
Date1885
MediumPen and ink and white paint on cream board mounted on second board
DimensionsSheet size: 13 7/8 × 10 7/8 in.
Image size: 13 3/8 × 10 1/16 in.
Mat size: 20 × 16 in.
SignedSigned in black ink at LL of image: "Ulrich".
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Gift of the Estate of Isabel S. Kurtz, 1991
Object number2003.14.83
Label TextWaifs is one of the rare drawings that has surfaced by the Munich-trained artist Charles Frederick Ulrich. It represents the playroom of an orphanage in Haarlem, Holland, and features one of the older girls there blowing bubbles. The drawing relates to Ulrich's unlocated canvas of the same title, which was shown at the 1885 annual exhibition of the National Academy. It was created in response to a request from Charles M. Kurtz, who published the drawing in his 1885 edition of National Academy Notes, which featured 85 illustrations of works featured in the show. Ulrich painted several canvases featuring girls from the orphanage, as did his American colleagues William Merritt Chase and Robert Frederick Blum. The artists spent time together in Haarlem at various points in the mid-1880s.
