Eustis Estate
Man Whittling
Gertrude Fiske (1879–1961)
Massachusetts or Maine, c. 1935
Oil on canvas
36 x 29 in.
Museum purchase
2018.34.1
Gertrude Fiske enrolled in the Boston Museum School in 1904, when she was twenty-five. Before long she was extolled in newspaper reviews, won medals at international expositions, and sold her work through one of the region’s most prestigious art galleries. In this painting she posed her model against a colorful geometric backdrop — a favorite quilt that she also chose when she sat for her own photograph. Depicting the model as an elderly woodworker, Fiske used a raking light to emphasize his arthritic knuckles, underscoring the character’s lifetime of working with his hands.