Oil paint on wood
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/philip-wilson-steer-1990" aria-label="More by Philip Wilson Steer" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Philip Wilson Steer</a>
Girl in a Blue Dress
Bequeathed by Sir Hugh Walpole 1941
actions: postures and motions
children
girl
individuals: female
named individuals
people
Pettigrew, Rose
portraits
sitting
<p>Steer often painted children, showing them either in domestic interiors or playing outdoors on the beach at Walberswick in Suffolk.</p><p>This girl admiring the pages of a picture book is Rose Pettigrew, who modelled for Steer for eight years. She wrote: ‘I love posing for Philip; and first of all posed for little money as I thought he was very poor, and child as I was, wanted to help him’. Her vulnerable position as a young girl, however, is borne out by hard wooden chair she sits on and her sparse surroundings.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint wood
11 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
11 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
2002-10-11
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
2002-10-11
Whistler Sargent and Steer - Frist
Tate partnerships & programmes
19 April 2004 – 11 June 2006
2006-06-11
19 April 2004 – 11 June 2006
2006-06-11
2004-04-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-04-19
Cult of Youth
Collection based display
Girl in a Blue Dress
support: 273 × 210 mm
frame: 460 × 391 × 45 mm
Bequeathed by Sir Hugh Walpole 1941
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text13">Steer often painted children, showing them</span><span class="text0"> either in domestic interiors or playing outdoors on the      beach at Walberswick  in Suffolk.  </span>
</div>
<div class="para9">
<span class="text0">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text0">This girl admiring the pages of a picture book is Rose      Pettigrew, who modelled  for Steer for eight years. She wrote:  ‘I      love posing for Philip; and first of all posed for little money as I      thought he  was very poor, and child as I was, wanted to help him’.      Her vulnerable position as  a young </span><span class="text14">girl,      however, is borne out by  hard wooden</span><span class="text0"> chair      she sits on and her sparse surroundings. </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-07-16T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N05295</b> GIRL IN A BLUE DRESS <i>c.</i> 1891</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inscr. ‘P. W. Steer’ t.l.
<br/>Oil on panel, 10 3/4×8 1/4 (27×21).
<br/>Bequeathed by Sir Hugh Walpole 1941.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Sir Hugh Walpole by 1937.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> Goupil Gallery, April–May 1909 (2), as ‘“Blue Dress” - sketch’ (apparently not sold); <i>Hugh Walpole's Collection,</i> French Gallery, May–June 1937 (49), as ‘The Blue Dress’.
<br/><i>Lit:</i> MacColl, 1945, pp.46, 223 (where described as of unknown date).</p>
<p>The sitter in this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> bears a close resemblance in both dress and appearance to Miss Rose Pettigrew, whose <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> Steer painted in 1891 (repr. MacColl, <i>op. cit.,</i> pl.17<i>b</i>), and who, with her sister, had sat to several <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/victorian" title="Glossary definition for 'Victorian'"><span>Victorian</span></a> painters, including Millais. The portrait of Miss Pettigrew, ‘Girl on a Sofa’, belonged in 1945 to Mrs George Burrell, and is described by MacColl as showing a girl in a blue dress. It seems not unreasonable to suppose that <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/steer-girl-in-a-blue-dress-n05295" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05295</span></a> is of about the same date (1891) as this.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions children girl individuals: female named individuals people Pettigrew, Rose portraits sitting