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Volume 2, Issue 8, September 2010
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Dear Friends,
As we greet the Fall season anew, we are very pleased to present this exceptional work by F. A Bridgman for your consideration. The
picture's provenance is impeccable, having descended through the family of the artist to the present day. We invite your enquiries and thank you!
With very best regards,
Joyce and Kevin Anderson |
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Frederic Arthur Bridgman
American, 1847-1928
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Young Girl of Tlemcen, 1903
Oil on canvas
24 ¾ x 18 1/2
inches (30 ½ x 24 framed)
Signed lower left: F.A. Bridgman
Dated (indistinctly) lower left: 1903
Price Upon Request
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Click Image to Enlarge
 Provenance:
By descent through the family of the artist.
Edward Hawkes Bridgman (Brother of the artist)
Harold Jennings Bridgman
Donald Hawkes Bridgman
Private collection, California
Exhibited:
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Annual Exhibition, 1904.
(Exhibition label verso reads: Title: Young girl of Tlemcen. Artist:
F.A. Bridgman. Address: 146 Blvd. Malsherbs, Paris, France)
Condition:
Excellent original condition.
Biography:
The city of Tlemçen (Tlemçin), Algeria, in the extreme northwest corner of the North African country, was a popular attraction with Orientalist artists in the nineteenth century. Its elaborate mosques, including the Great Mosque of Tlemçen (1082), one of the grandest and (today) best-preserved Almoravid buildings in Algeria, provided Western artists with picture-perfect backdrops for their exotic compositions.
Bridgman used Algeria as his winter getaway during his years in Paris (his 1890 autobiography, in fact, is titled Winters in Algeria), and is known to have painted a number of compositions in and around Tlemçen. His first experience with Orientalism came in 1872-73 when he traveled through Spain. The peculiar Mediterranean light and Moorish architecture gave him a taste of what North Africa had to offer him; he
sampled the local nightlife and spent afternoons exploring the
surrounding villages and oases on horseback. It was during this time
that he began to paint North African scenes depicting the exotic culture
in which he was immersed. By the end of that decade, Bridgman had fully embraced Orientalism, and exhibited his exotic compositions at the Salons with great acclaim.
 Of all the American Orientalists, Bridgman relied most heavily on the Islamic woman as his subject. While, like many of his Western colleagues, Bridgman occasionally depicted his women in a sexualized manner, in the present painting he portrays this beautiful Algerian woman in a more matter-of-fact way, accentuating the costume, jewelry, and headdress that was indigenous to this part of the country. By literally lifting the veil, Bridgman also demystified the Near Eastern woman for his Western audience, giving his viewers and patrons the chance to identify and connect with the exotic subject more readily.
Frederick Arthur Bridgman was born in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1847. Sensing the north-south tensions prior to the Civil War, his family returned to their native Boston soon after Frederick's birth. They later moved to New York, where Frederick began to show his artistic talent. As a teenager, he joined the American Banknote Company as an apprentice engraver.
In 1865 and 1866 Bridgman exhibited works at the Brooklyn Art Association. Encouraged by his success, and with the sponsorship of a group of Brooklyn businessmen, the young artist set out for Paris. In the autumn of 1866 he joined the atelier of Jean-Léon Gérôme where he studied for 4 years, spending the summers in Pont-Aven.
Bridgman's travels in North Africa and Egypt brought about a radical change in his palate, which became much paler. He was also a photographer and often worked from his photographs when painting, depicting the world of richly adorned women in veils and using transparent effects, and white on white. As well as his scenes of everyday life, Bridgman painted historical subjects from ancient Egypt and Assyria.
The next ten years was a period of uninterrupted success. In  1890 several exhibitions of his pictures took place in Fifth Avenue galleries in New York. As his career progressed, he continued to paint Orientalist themes, though he also explored the symbolist style, society portraiture, and historical and biblical themes. In 1907 he became an Officer of the French Legion of Honour.
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