TitleThe Entertainer
Artist
Hilda Belcher
(American, 1881 - 1963)
Daten.d.
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 36 × 30 in.
Framed: 40 × 34 × 2 in.
SignedSigned upper right: "Hilda Belcher"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, March 6, 1933
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number77-P
Label TextHilda Belcher's mother, Martha Wood Belcher, was a self-supporting artist who gave her daughter basic instruction in art. Hilda attended the Chase School from 1900 to 1904, studying under William Merritt Chase, Kenneth Hayes-Miller , Robert Henri, George Luks and George Bellows. Mother and daughter traveled through Europe in 1913, sketching and painting together, and Hilda traveled frequently throughout her life. In the 1920's and 1930's she traveled to Savannah, Georgia and became known for her sensitive depiction of the African American community there. She was also known for watercolor portraits of children. This painting may depict her niece, Jane Belcher, at the age of twenty-one wearing a stylish, boldly patterned dress. The chair that she is holding onto is one that Hilda used quite often and is still in the Pittsford, Vermont house that her mother designed that was Hilda's lifelong home.