Walt Kuhn, Plumes, 1931, Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in.; 101.6 x 76.2 cm.. Acquired 1932. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC.

Let’s let Duncan Phillips tell us about this painting:

“The girl under the Plumes, is thoroughly disillusioned and tired of it all. She seems to sag under her magnificent headdress and wonder perhaps why she ever left home. That headdress nonetheless is a magnificent passage of painting. The feathers are the very essence of feathers and, as texture, they are the apotheosis of pigment.”

That passage is from Phillips’s 1932 catalog to accompany an exhibition at the museum, Kuhn’s first solo show in Washington. Phillips purchased six Kuhn paintings between 1924 and 1943.

This work is on view in the Made in the USA exhibition through August 31, 2014.