Stella with a Flowered Hat

‘Stella with a Flowered Hat’ by Kees van Dongen (1877-1968) is one of my favourite paintings in The National Gallery. I love the coquettish look on Stella’s face and that incredible Edwardian hat worked in strokes of vibrant colour.  The National Gallery tells me ‘The artist Van Dongen painted the nightlife of Montmartre and Stella is probably a ‘demi-mondaine’. She is portrayed in the violent, dissonant colours that are the hallmark of the powerful fauve portraits of women executed by the artist between 1905 and 1910. ‘

Stella is one of my stops on my fashion tours of the gallery. I took my fashion students on a tour of the gallery today to teach them fashion history through the ages and to work on drawing. This is a snap of two of my students Caroline and Kaori taking in that fabulous Edwardian flowered hat.