Cummer Resources

This ethereal work by Charles Webster Hawthorne is one of three portraits he created of his secretary, Margaret Wilson. Miss Wilson worked with Hawthorne from 1920 until his death in 1930, and in addition to the portraits, she also was featured in a number of his Madonna and adoration scenes.  Here April stands in luminous white, stoic in thought, against a mysterious and otherworldly background. When criticized for his figures being too ‘sad’, Hawthorne responded, “I realize that your criticism of their being ‘sad’ is just, but I am not going to try to please the newspapers — they are a flock of sheep who have gone crazy on the new art idea. They are calling me ‘old hat’ because I don’t swing with every new fad.”