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“Seated Woman” by Charles Bohannah (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1940 - Melvin Holmes Collection of African American Art (San Francisco, California) #WomenInArt #HolmesArtGallery #MelvinHolmesCollection #CharlesBohannah #Bohannah #AfricanAmericanArt #BlueskyArt #artText #BlackArt #art #AmericanArt
Made by American artist Charles Bohannah around 1940, “Seated Woman” sits near a pivotal threshold in Bohannah’s life as a Brooklyn-born artist trained through institutions like Cooper Union and the Art Students League. Around the beginning of World War II, he pursued technical training to support the war effort, then turned increasingly to photography during the war years, before returning to oil painting afterward. That layered skillset helps explain this portrait’s balance between softness and structure so it feels more observed than staged. It’s an intimate vertical portrait of a woman with deep brown skin and a full natural afro. She sits cross-legged on a wooden chair, one arm draped over the back, wearing a white button-down blouse and dark skirt with black heels. It’s a quiet, self-possessed pose that reads as both restful and watchful. Her calm gaze meets us against a warm reddish-brown background as soft light models her face and legs. The composition is close, direct, and less about surroundings than about presence so our attention stays with her posture, the angle of her head, and the calm, steady way she occupies the narrow canvas. Bohannah’s paint handling emphasizes form over spectacle with broad, confident passages to establish the figure, while smaller, more deliberate transitions describe facial structure and the contours of the hands and clothing. The sitter is presented as a complete person rather than a type. It is noted that the back of the painting bears the artist’s business card with a Brooklyn address. The card adds a grounding detail that this portrait is not only an image of a beautiful woman, but also evidence of an artist building a working life, advertising his practice, and insisting on professional visibility. In that light, the woman’s composed stillness becomes the painting’s argument that presence is power, and being seen on one’s own terms is a form of authorship.
February 5, 2026 at 3:09 PM