Circulation, exchange and race in Ralph Clarkson's 'Nouvart Dzeron, a daughter of Armenia'

Ralph Clarkson, a prominent Chicago portrait painter, created his best known work, the painting 'Nouvart Dzeron,' in 1912. The painting depicts a full-length portrait of a young woman dressed in traditional Armenian dress. Between 1912 and the 1920s, the title of the painting would change from 'Nouvart Dzeron' to 'A Daughter of Armenia' to eventually a combination of the two titles: 'Nouvart Dzeron, A Daughter of Armenia.' This changing title reveals how socio-political conceptions altered how people read the seemingly simple composition of a model posed against a blank background. This painting acts as a site of exploration for the changing conceptions of whiteness and commodification of ethnicity during a fifteen years span in the beginning of the twentieth century. Between 1912 and 1915, Clarkson used this painting to depict a generic idea of the Orient in order to bolster his own status as a fine artist. With the Armenian genocide of 1915, the painting’s subject moved into the realm of symbolism and ceased to be just a commodity of Clarkson’s to further his career. Instead, the more valuable commodity became Dzeron’s specific ethnicity: Armenian. And finally, in the mid-1920s, the two titles were combined as public opinion turned against the Armenian cause and the painting’s memorializing effect lessened.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Weber, Amy L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Greenhill, Jennifer A.

• American Art History
• Ralph Elmer Clarkson
• Armenian-Americans
• Chicago

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Amy L. Weber

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24298

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24298