“Miss Beaux is not only the greatest woman painter, but the best that has ever lived.”
—William Merritt Chase
American painter Cecilia Beaux (1855–1952) established a new paradigm of portraiture, capturing members of America’s leading families with a psychological depth and penetrating frankness that sets her works apart from those of her peers such as John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt. Cecilia Beaux: Gilded Angst reexamines her career by positioning her work at the intersection of conservative upper-class culture and bohemian avant-garde circles. 
Beaux was raised among the social elite, although her family’s finances did not match their social standing; she learned to draw and paint as a potential source of income. After training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Académie Julien in Paris, Beaux went on to portray the who’s who of prominent families in Philadelphia and New York, as well as major public figures. Over the course of her career, Beaux remained fiercely independent, declining marriage proposals and maintaining a connection to the “Dabsville” creative community in Gloucester, Massachusetts, known for its queerness and unconventional values. In revealing lesser-known dimensions of Beaux’s artistic and personal life, this book shows how her positioning between two worlds made her a path-breaking portraitist.
The book explores themes including:

• Motherhood in Beaux’s paintings
• Ancestry and race-science in her life and work
• Her materials and techniques

Distributed for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Exhibition Schedule: 
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
(June 7–September 26, 2027) 
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
(October 21, 2027–January 17, 2028)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
(February 28–May 28, 2028)