Lady in black, ca. 1897-98
Graphite and (Winsor & Newton) liquid graphite medium on heavy off-white wove paper
mounted on gray wove paper
Gift of Josephine Haskell Aldridge in memory of Richard Aldridge (Class of 1952)
AC 1996.178
Three drawings included in this exhibition introduce Haskell’s previously overlooked use of an unusual medium: the commercial art product called liquid graphite.
Only four liquid graphite drawings by Haskell are known, all of them identified in the course of research for this exhibition; three of them are in the Mead’s collection. Haskell bequeathed these sheets to his youngest daughter, Josephine Haskell Aldridge, who donated them to Amherst College in 1996, as part of an important gift of more than seventy works.
A note by the artist on the back of Lady in black identifies the rare material. A letter preserved in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art (Washington, D.C.) provides a likely date: writing to his sister and sponsor, Mabel, from Paris in about 1897, Haskell asked her to send him a bottle of liquid graphite, a new product marketed by Winsor & Newton from 1896 to 1900.
The properties of liquid graphite allow researchers to uncover Haskell’s drawing process for Lady in black without need of specialized scientific equipment. Here, Haskell’s preliminary sketch is visible as a shallow depression in the paper. Additions made over graphite wash are amplified by its metallic properties, a quality that probably appealed to Haskell. He eschewed any technique that could mask faulty draftsmanship. The diagrams in this slideshow identify the stages of work on the surface of this sheet.
Visitors may request to see this object in the Mead’s William Green Study Room when it is no longer on display in the museum.