From the collection of:
The Filson Historical Society || VAM Home

This painting is a self-portrait of artist Carrie Douglas Dudley Ewen at the age of 42. She sits in a three-quarter pose, looking out at the viewer with friendly eyes and the hint of a smile. Her hair is pulled back in a sophisticated bun, and she wears a green, Asian-style jacket.

About the Artist

Carrie Douglas Dudley Ewen was born in 1894 in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Her father, Charles Lee Dudley, was a Civil War veteran who operated a car service. Her mother, Lula Keener Dudley, liked to indulge her artistic inclinations by painting and probably encouraged her daughter’s artistic interests. Carrie began working creatively when she was a child by making paper dolls, a practice she continued later in life.

Ewen moved to Chicago to attend the city’s esteemed Art Institute. After graduating, she decided to stay in Chicago and began making a living doing commercial work. Her diverse assignments ranged from illustrations for children’s tales and recipe books to producing greeting cards for Henri Fayette. Feeling compelled to assume a male pseudonym, she called herself Douglas Ewen. As her niece, Lu Ann Weinstein remembers, “Aunt Doug was making money long before women were supposed to be so uppity.”

Ewen traveled to places like London, Paris, and Milan on business trips with her husband, Jack Ewen, a Frigidaire employee. Throughout this time she continued working on her commercial endeavors. She also wrote and illustrated whimsical and innovative “peek-a-boo” books, in which the cardboard pages contain small windows revealing images on subsequent pages that can be changed at random.

Most of the subjects of Ewen’s stunning portraits were people she was close to, such as her father and her young niece, Lu Ann Bear. Like the picture of her studio, these paintings were done for her enjoyment rather than sale. Many people offered to buy her paintings, but she refused, intending to keep them.

Ewen moved back to Kentucky in 1963 to be with her ailing brother, Bruce. She occupied an apartment in Louisville’s York Towers and applied her creativity even to the more mundane facets of life. For instance, in her apartment, she had the carpet removed and the floor painted black. The walls were a shade of yellow, and the accents of the rooms were turquoise.

In the last years of her life, Ewen continued to design Christmas cards, creating scenes of jolly Santas, winsome angels, ice-skating snowmen, and Louisville streets. She lived in Louisville until her death in 1982 and is buried in her hometown of Flemingsburg.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: What can you guess about the artist’s personality from this painting? Look at it together with Ewen’s Painter’s Studio, also in the Filson Historical Society gallery of the Kentucky Virtual Art Museum. What do the two works tell you about Ewen? Compare this self-portrait to the self-portrait of artist Oliver Frazer in the Filson gallery. What might account for some of the differences between the two portrayals?

Activity: Create a self-portrait. Before you begin, think about how you want to portray yourself. Consider things such as your clothes, your hair, your facial expression, your pose (whether you will face the viewer, be in profile, etc.), and the background. When you finish, discuss with a classmate some of the difficulties you had in creating your self-portrait and how successful you feel you were at portraying yourself as you had wanted.

Links

See other works by Ewen and find out about the artist at the Filson Historical Society web site.
[www.filsonhistorical.org/dougexhibit.html]

Explore the art of the self-portrait at these sites:

• ArtLex has images of self-portraits in a variety of styles.
  [www.artlex.com/ArtLex/s/self-portrait.html]
• The WebMuseum, Paris has a collection of self-portraits by Rembrandt.
  [www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rembrandt/self/]