Girl by Candlelight

ClassificationsPaintings-watercolors

Artist Millard Sheets (American, 1907 - 1989)

Date1942-1962

MediumWatercolor on paper

Dimensions3 × 4 in. (7.6 × 10.2 cm)
Framed: 6 3/4 × 7 3/4 × 1 1/4 in. (17.1 × 19.7 × 3.2 cm)

Credit LineAnn and Bill Cullen Memorial Collection

Object number2018.6.34

DescriptionMerritt “Muggs” Van Sant first met Millard Sheets in the Bradbury building where he was selling insurance and Sheets was painting the building’s iconic iron stairs. Muggs was fascinated by Millard’s talent, and Sheets was about as personable a type as one comes by. The pair became fast friends, travelling together to paint—a hobby first introduced to Muggs by Sheets. Throughout their entire 60 year friendship, Sheets sent Muggs Christmas cards and gifts in the form of paintings with personalized inscriptions. After Muggs’ passing, David Starry-Sheets, Millard Sheets organized the sale of the Muggs Van Sant Collection, purchased by Ann Cullen. Paintings in this collection tend to be snapshots of Sheets’ travels abroad sent back home to his good friend Muggs. The vast majority of these paintings are portraits of young women from Europe, Asia and the Pacific Islands painted while Sheets was serving as an arts ambassador for the U.S. State Department or in 1966-67 when he conducted painting workshops in these places. This unidentified woman illuminated by candlelight is no exception, but a lack of documentation and the stylized aesthetic make it difficult to determine where this was painted.

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