Details

This portrait depicts Addams standing in stately monochrome, hands behind her back, light illuminating her pale brow like a source of great wisdom. Pictured just three years after the opening of Hull-House, while she was in her early thirties, Addams radiates self-possession and maturity, a hint of gray in the part of her hair.

The dark crimson backdrop gives no interior detail, as if Addams exists beyond the material world; her gaze is directed not at the viewer but elsewhere, as if she is thinking about the complex social issues of her time.

The painting was commissioned by Addams’s stepmother. Addams commissioned Kellogg Tyler’s portrait of Mary Rozet Smith, currently on view in the bedroom upstairs. The two paintings are unusual examples of art commissioned by, for, and about women.