Skip Navigation

Marianne Moore

Marguerite Thompson Zorach

American Art

The modernist poet Marianne Moore is readily recognizable here by her slender face and neck, her elongated fingers, and her signature mannish dress. Notwithstanding the reductive and linear approach to form in this portrait, it crackles with personality, conveyed through the artist’s use of expressive lines and physical distortions, particularly in the hands.

Marguerite Zorach and Moore were both involved in New York City’s vanguard cultural circles and admired each other’s works. Zorach’s richly colored paintings and embroideries served as the source of inspiration for Moore’s poem “In the Days of Prismatic Color” (1923).
MEDIUM Graphite on beige colored, medium weight, smooth, wove paper
DATES ca. 1925
DIMENSIONS Sheet: 11 x 8 1/2 in. (27.9 x 21.6 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Unsigned
INSCRIPTIONS On verso, inscribed in blue ball-point pen, lower right: "H-327"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 80.87
CREDIT LINE Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Tessim Zorach
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Marguerite Thompson Zorach (American, 1887-1968). Marianne Moore, ca. 1925. Graphite on beige colored, medium weight, smooth, wove paper, Sheet: 11 x 8 1/2 in. (27.9 x 21.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Tessim Zorach, 80.87. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 80.87_IMLS_PS3.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 80.87_IMLS_PS3.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 1/7/2010
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Estate of Marguerite Thompson Zorach
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.