Fast Favorites: All Natural

Blog Category:  Fast Favorites
An elaborate floral arrangement painted with precise detail appears dramatically spot lit against a dark background. Large red and pink blooms dominate, interspersed with small yellow, white, and blue blossoms and varied foliage. Moths and other insects animate the bouquet.
October 19, 2022
10/19/22

While the museum’s building is closed for renovation, our volunteers have been separated from the works of art they’ve grown to love. In our Fast Favorites series, we share volunteers’ insights and explore what makes their selections so special to them, perhaps helping you discover new NMWA favorites. 

Although these works vary in style and content, each artist looked to the natural world to inspire their palette, setting, or subject.

An auburn-haired, light-skinned young woman occupies the central panel of a triptych. Barefoot and clad in a sleeveless white dress, she reclines on a bed of autumn leaves in a rocky, moonlit landscape. The mist at her feet obscures mice. Fairy folk frolic in the left panel.
Elizabeth Adela Armstrong Forbes, Will-O’-the-Wisp, ca. 1900; Oil on canvas, 27 x 44 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

1. Will-o’-the-Wisp, ca. 1900, by Elizabeth Adela Armstrong Forbes

Visitor Experience Volunteer Genevieve Moreland: “I appreciate that the piece is based on the poem ‘The Fairies,’ by William Allingham. When you look at the piece and read the poem together, you’re able to visualize Bridget’s experience with the ‘wee folk.’ I also really love how the frame contains words from Allingham’s poem. Forbes’s work shows both the mythical and natural world, and I love imagining the fairies in the forest.”

A black-and-white photograph shows the back of a woman as she crests a rocky path above a vast desert landscape beneath an expansive sky. Her traditional, ethnic full skirt, long-sleeved blouse, and long, straight, dark hair contrasts with the modern portable stereo she carries.
Graciela Iturbide, Mujer Ángel (Angel Woman), Sonoran Desert, 1979; Collection of Elizabeth and Michael Marcus; © Graciela Iturbide; Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

2. Mujer Ángel, Desierto de Sonora (Angel Woman, Sonoran Desert), 1979, by Graciela Iturbide

Visitor Experience Volunteer Lucy Gregor: “I am drawn to this image because, like the desert it features, it is vast. Vast in possibility—who is she? Where is she going?—and also vast in composition, with the black-and-white film making the desert, to me, incredibly striking and a bit eerie. Iturbide’s work features what may be an ordinary day for the subject in the photo and makes it extraordinary for the viewer.”

Densely layered, expressive brushwork in cream, white, and multiple shades of green cover a rectangular, horizontal canvas from edge to edge. Daubs and splashes of paint mingle with strokes resembling arcs, circles, ovals, and other curving forms to suggest movement and energy.
Lee Krasner, The Springs, 1964; Oil on canvas, 43 x 66 x 1 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; 2014 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

3. The Springs, 1964, by Lee Krasner

Docent Erin Garland: “What I love most about The Springs is the contrast between the calming, peaceful colors and the constant movement. It reminds me of the shadows the sun creates on the ground when coming through the tops of trees. The shapes look familiar, but then shift to something else entirely. It doesn’t matter how many times I look at this work; I never see it in the same way.”

An elaborate floral arrangement painted with precise detail appears dramatically spot lit against a dark background. Large red and pink blooms dominate, interspersed with small yellow, white, and blue blossoms and varied foliage. Moths and other insects animate the bouquet.
Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s; Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 33 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

4. Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s, by Rachel Ruysch

Docent Christina Reitz: “Ruysch made a career of combining difficult or even impossible collections of flowers into one still life. While this is one of her more conventional arrangements, the convolvulus, or Morning Glory, wouldn’t bloom as beautifully in real life as it does here. Plus, it’s full of bugs.” 

About the Author

—Organized by Ashley W. Harris, associate educator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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