Still Life with Daisies and Assorted Flowers in a Vase

Label

Ilse Bischoff is best known for her work in still life, and her paintings reflect her close study of nature. This work, given by the artist to her sister, likely held special importance for the two women with its multicolored daisies, pansies, and other flowers in a porcelain vase decorated with painted flowers of the same hues. Bischoff’s attention to detail is further emphasized by the frame she selected, which is embellished with additional floral motifs.

Ilse Bischoff lived and worked in New York until the mid-1940s, when she purchased a home in nearby Hartland, Vermont. Her house became the center of a large artistic circle that included Paul Cadmus, George Tooker and his partner William Christopher, and Jared French and his wife, Margaret Hoenig French. Bischoff supported the work of these gay and bisexual artists in a period when same-sex love was still heavily criminalized in the United States.

From the 2024 exhibition Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Exhibition History

Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 18, 2024 - late 2025.

Provenance

The artist (1901-1990), Hartland, Vermont; given to her sister, Carola Bischoff Terwilliger (1899-1984), South Woodstock, Vermont; bequeathed to present collection, 1986.

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