Alice Pike Barney, born Cincinnati, OH - Lunar - ca. 1921 - T-Shirt

A pale, upturned face with wide, lifted eyes and parted lips rises out of a misty field of sage green and slate teal pastel, turning toward a sky the artist left unresolved.

Visual Elements & Composition

The figure is a woman's head and upper shoulders, turned toward the upper left with her brows raised and her mouth slightly open. Her face is the lightest value in the piece, a luminous cream that holds the eye. Around her, soft washes of sage green, blue grey and dark olive build a shifting, cloud-like ground, while a drape of green and teal rises along the right edge. Her hair falls in cool blue-grey strokes that blur into the background, and the edges of her head dissolve rather than sharpen. Beneath all of it, a fine cross-hatched texture runs across the sheet, so the colour reads as layered pastel rather than flat fill.

Meaning & Symbolism

The title Lunar points to the moon and the night, and the cool palette carries that reading through. The upturned gaze and the open mouth suggest a moment of vision or reverie, so the woman reads as an apparition in a nocturnal haze rather than a fixed likeness. Alice Pike Barney, a Cincinnati-born painter and pastellist, built her reputation on portraits and figure studies that favour atmosphere and tonal harmony over precise detail. This sheet, dated about 1921, comes from the later part of her output and shows her continued interest in the expressive, dreamlike possibilities of pastel.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A tee is worn close to the body and seen from the front as the wearer moves, so the upturned face and misty field sit at chest height and shift with every turn of the shoulders. The blue-green atmosphere surrounds the wearer the way the haze surrounds the figure, and the pale face becomes the point where the eye lands first. The design carries the drawing's quiet, nocturnal mood onto everyday clothing.