Yvonne Pène du Bois

Yvonne Pène du Bois (1913–1997) was an American artist who specialized in architectural subjects and landscapes. She received her art education privately from her father, Guy Pène du Bois, and as a student at the Art Students League. She once said that her three greatest influences were her father, artist Edward Hopper, and architect Hugh Ferriss. She said she intended her paintings to evoke emotions and to be expressive rather than analytic. She worked almost entirely in oil-on-canvas. She painted in her studio from sketches made in the field.

During her career, she exhibited widely in both nonprofit and commercial galleries, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1985, the Graham Gallery in New York held a retrospective exhibition showcasing four decades of her work. Critics praised her for good draughtsmanship and handling of color. She spent most of her youth in France and later established her career in New York.

Early life and training

In 1913 du Bois was born in the New York City borough of Staten Island and spent her early childhood in Greenwich Village. In 1924 the du Bois family moved to a tiny commune in central France so that her father could devote full time to painting. For the next four years she attended a boarding school in Versailles, and when, in 1928, her family moved to Nice, she completed her secondary education at a prestigious local day school. Du Bois later said drawing and painting came naturally to her and she was always the best student in these schools' art classes. After the Wall Street crash of 1929 caused an abrupt change in its finances, the family returned to New York. Guy Pène du Bois took a position as instructor at the Art Students League. Then aged 16, Du Bois began to work under him as a student and, somewhat later, became his assistant teacher. Her other teachers included Kenneth Hayes Miller, Kimon Nicolaïdes, William Von Schegell, and Thomas Hart Benton. She later said it was at first difficult for her to accept that her work at the league was no better than the work of other students.