Portrait of Honoré Willsie Morrow (c. 1917): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Honoré Willsie Morrow (c. 1917) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852–1934).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This bust-length portrait of Honoré Willsie Morrow demonstrates how Käsebier brought an artistic attitude to even straightforward commercial portrait commissions. Morrow (1880–1940) was a successful author of fiction and nonfiction and a magazine editor. Käsebier’s portrait, while appropriately demure, nonetheless conveys the sitter’s intelligence, energy, and directness, enlivening a formulaic composition through pose, framing, and highlighting.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Honoré Willsie Morrow
• Date: c. 1917
• Creator attribution: Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852–1934)
• Culture: America
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: platinum print
• Dimensions: Image: 12.6 x 9.5 cm (4 15/16 x 3 3/4 in.); Paper: 12.6 x 9.5 cm (4 15/16 x 3 3/4 in.); Primary mount: 14.2 x 10.5 cm (5 9/16 x 4 1/8 in.); Secondary mount: 23 x 18 cm (9 1/16 x 7 1/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - American 1900-1950
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2022.115

A detail from the museum

Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most revered artistic portraitists of her day.

Collection credit

Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg

Further reading listed by the museum

• Charles Ralph Rounds, Wisconsin Authors and Their Works, Madison, WI: Parker Educational Company, 1918

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.