Della Shull
American, 1878-1961

Self Portrait, 1914
oil on canvas
72 × 36 in.

SBMA, Anonymous Donor
00.117.1

RESEARCH PAPER

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Self-Portrait by American artist Della Shull, undated, is an oil on canvas. Its provenance is unknown although it is interesting to note that a painting titled “Self Portrait” was exhibited in a show of her work at the Ainslie Gallery in New York City January 26 - 30, 1926. There is no photograph of this work in the exhibition catalog and any connection is purely speculative.

Della (sometimes recorded as “Delia”) Shull was actively painting and showing her work during the 1920s and 1930s in New York City. She also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. Ms. Shull studied with the renowned American impressionist William Merritt Chase, founder of the New York School of Art. It is very certain that she was also very much influenced by Robert Henri, a pivotal player in the transition in American art fi-om 19th-century academicism to 20th-century self-expression. Some biographical sources indicate that Robert Henri was Ms. Shull’s teacher; other references indicate that Mr. Henri and Ms. Shull, with their spouses, were close friends and traveling companions. One of Ms. Shull’s many portraits was of Robert Henri.

Whether or not they were teacher and student, close friends, or both, it is apparent that Robert Henri’s influence on Della Shul1’s work was profound. Her self-portrait evidences this connection. First, there is the life-size likeness, initially put forth by Henri and considered radical in its day. It was unlike the typically ornate and pretty salon portraits done through the turn of the century. Notice the lack of props: Della suggests the presence of an easel but the painting has few background objects or compositional gimmicks, again typical of the portraiture that Henri began focusing on in 1902.

Second is the palette that Ms. Shull chose to use. Robert Henri, initially enamored with Impressionism during his student days in Paris, discovered the dark palette after discovering Manet in the late 1800s. Consequently, Henri urged his pupils to employ a simple palette of light red, yellow ochre, terre verte, blue, black, and white. Della’s portrait is rich in the colors of Henri with reds and ochres dominating the work.

Third is the method of applying paint to canvas, the “technique”. Robert Henri never minded the detail. He taught a loose, slashing brushstroke. Henri’s classrooms were splattered with paint as pupils worked rapidly and freely. He would often ask his students to paint enormous, full-length portraits and complete them in a day or two in imitation of their teacher. Robert Henri taught his students to look and get the impression, then work a long time in a big way. In Della’s work one sees the loose, rapid brushstrokes. She followed Henri’s directive to never change the direction of a line unless you have to; never break or change a curve. Della paints her essential features, those things about herself that would have made people recognize her a block away.

Fourth is style, the form or expression of a painting. Robert Henri was criticized for not emphasizing the importance of anatomy in the traditional sense. He spoke of a love affair between the parts of the human form. Henri gave much instruction in the painting of the head, believing that if the head was right the features weren’t so important. The head was to have some sort of intention, to communicate some sense of a person’s life. Della holds her head high in her self-portrait, with her chin up to communicate confidence and pride. She uses shadows and dark tones in the uncomplicated background behind her head to bring attention to her face, another Henri technique. Robert Henri taught, too, that in a portrait one arm is always more important than the other because you can’t look at both with equal interest. Della uses light and form to emphasize the arm nearest the viewer.

Henri preached that portraits should reflect the character and the soul of the model, not merely the shell of a posed subject. Della’s portrait presents an image of a confident, sophisticated woman. She was actively painting during a time in American history when women had been granted the right to vote, the Charleston was in full swing, and unparalleled social freedoms bumped up against political conservatism and religious fundamentalism. Della’s image is that of the “emancipated” woman with her bobbed hair and “short” skirt. Della’s skirt is painted in a lower value to keep its importance down but her fashion statement is part of the “soul” of the painting.

Della was first married to a prominent New York attorney, Kennedy Thompson, and it was after his death that she came to Santa Barbara to visit. She later established a studio in the art colony off Canon Perdido Street. Her second husband, Paul Rich, preceded her in death. Ms. Shull died in 1961 in a Santa Barbara hospital following a long illness.

Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Kathy Logan

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ainslee Galleries, “Exhibition of Portraits, Landscapes, and Other Painting by Della Shull,” January 16 - 30, 1926

American Art Armual Who’s Who in Art Volume XXIV 1927

Bakker Gallery, James R. Bakker, April 25, 1993, auction catalog

Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art (active 1898-1947); Sound View Press, 1985

Haskell, Barbara. The American Century: American Art & Culture 1900 - 1950. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1999

Hislop, Richard. Annual Art Sales Index 1978/79 Volume II, L-Z.

Hislop, Richard. Annual Art Sales Index 1992/93 Volume II, L-Z.

Library and Research Center, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.

Maxwell Galleries, LTD., April 6, 1979, auction catalog

Opitz, Glenn B. Mantle. Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters. Sculptors and Engravers. Apollo Books 1986

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, “105th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” January 23, 1910 - March 20, 1910

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, “128th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” January 29, 1933 - March 19, 1933

Perlman, Bennard B. Robert Henri: His Life and His Art. New York: Dover Publications, 1991

Santa Barbara Historical Society, Santa Barbara, California


SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Della Shull was one of a number of women artists who studied with Robert Henri, the dynamic leader of the group that exhibited under the name ‘The Eight’ at Macbeth Gallery, and the leader of the Ashcan school. Little documentation survives regarding Shull’s career, though we know that she traveled to Paris in the company of Henri and his wife in the 1890s and that she, like Henri, also studied with William Merritt Chase. She accompanied Chase to Monterey, California and became one of the many plein-air painters working in a loose, painterly idiom related to the outdoor aesthetic of the French Impressionists.

Our painting is a rare self-portrait of the artist at full length, presumably studying her own likeness
in the mirror as she contemplates the next stroke of the brush. The closed circuit of the self-portrait, which implies that the canvas in the painting is the painting that we look upon, is a metaphor for self-reflexivity. Shull’s detachment from her own body is communicated by the analytical gaze that she casts upon her reflection. The bold palette and loose brushwork were remarked upon by critics, who praised her for her “vivid color” and “natural animated gesture.”

- Ludington Court Reopening, 2021