One of my friends asked me which of my own paintings was my favorite. It’s the Little Girl.
This request prompted me to put together this History of a Painting. Here it is:
Many people call this “Indian Boy” and I can see the androgynous nature of the painting, but for me, it’s always been the “Little Girl.” I finished it in early 1980. Until about 1998, it was with friends in upstate New York, where it spent many years in an attic before I got it back. It’s a large painting, so you have to have a large wall for it. Here is a photograph of it in my house today:
This gives you a feeling for its size. It’s three feet wide and four feet high.
Here is how it came about: In 1975, when I was an 18-year-old youth living with my parents, there was an insert magazine that came with the local newspaper, called the Mission Aktuell, a German magazine about foreign missionary aid in third world countries. The cover struck a chord in me, and I saved it at the time. This was before I had ever done a single oil painting, and I do not remember why I saved the cover, or where I saved it. It simply was with me in 1978, when I started painting in earnest.
I did a preliminary painting of the Little Girl. I have a yellowed photograph of it still, but I do not remember what happened to the painting itself and if it still exists somewhere. I lost a lot of my early paintings in my wild youth years of Sturm und Drang and associated moving around. Here is the photograph:
The coloring is off here, because the photograph is over 40 years old and those paper photos have a tendency to lose their color. But I was never happy enough with it in 1978, and that’s why I picked the subject up again in 1979. It took me about a year to finish the final form of the Little Girl, and it’s now celebrating its 40th birthday.
Of course, I’ll never know who the girl was that posed for the magazine in 1975. If she was perhaps five years old then, she would be 50 now.
I wish she could know.
The story reminds me of the Afghan Girl in National Geographic. Imagine if you could find her, and do a present painting of her; that would be extraordinary.
I can see why it is your favourite. Apart from the shades of light and shadow, you have captured the innocence in her eyes really well. I do like the preliminary work, too. The trace of sadness there is palpable.
I saw an article about the National Geographic girl and they found her as a woman. There was a full article about her in a more recent National Geographic. So that look has indeed been closed. That face is very iconic. It’s art in its own right now, so making a painting out of it would be most challenging indeed.
It is amazing how much difference a few paint strokes can make to the subject’s demeanor. The original girl’s expression is pleading. In your first attempt, she is hostile, or at least resentful. In your masterpiece, she is still pleading, but there is a hint of hope in her face.
Wow, Mary, thanks for those observations. Obviously, these paintings have existed for the majority of my life, so I see them differently than anyone else. I appreciate your insight and comment.