Name:
Chris Ratcliffe
Occupation:
Bryant College, Professor in Management
Selection:
Charles Walter Stetson, Katherine Beecher Stetson
Notes:
Collecting since early adulthood, over 20 pieces in collection. Passionate member of Providence Art Club overseeing the digitizing of the club’s archives.
Comment on selection:
The quiet strength depicted in this painting speaks volumes about the challenges in Katherine’s early life. Born to the artist and his wife, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman (The Yellow Wallpaper, Herland, Women and Economics), Katherine was forced to live through the depths of depression experienced by her mother soon after her birth.
In her autobiography, Charlotte wrote the following:
The baby? I nursed her for five months. I would hold her close that lovely child – and instead of love and happiness, feel only pain. The tears ran down on my breast… Nothing was utterly more bitter than this, that even motherhood bought no joy.”