“Sadness,” Benjamin Orso Eggleston

This portrait entitled “Sadness,” by American artist Benjamin Orso Eggleston  (b. 1867 d. 1937) depicts a thoughtful young woman dressed in a gold robe. Her eyes are slightly teary as she stares away from the viewer. Benjamin Eggleston is well known for his paintings of figures, portraits, and landscapes and has been classified as an American Tonalist, Barbizon School. He studied under artist Douglas Volk at the Minneapolis School of Fine Art, then later worked as an artist for the Minneapolis Tribune. He later moved to New York, became the president of the Brooklyn Artist Club (later renamed Brooklyn Society of Artists), a member of the Salmagundi Club, a charter member of the Brooklyn Ten, and exhibited in the National Academy of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy, Carnegie Institute, and the Brooklyn Art Institute. He spent a number of his formative years studying in Paris, and adopted a more impressionistic style, focusing on painting mostly female subjects. One