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“The Bathing Girl” by William Arthur Cooper (American) - Oil on canvas / 1932 - The Johnson Collection (Spartanburg, South Carolina) #WomenInArt #TheJohnsonCollection #WilliamArthurCooper #AfricanAmericanArt #BlackArt #art #artText #BlueskyArt #PortraitofaGirl #AmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArtist
Painted in 1932, over 30 years prior to U.S. swimming pools being desegregated across most of the country, this painting turns leisure into a form of dignity and insistence. A “bathing girl” can suggest sport, freedom, and summertime ease, yet the era’s realities make those ideas politically charged to ask who was allowed to swim, where, and under what conditions? A teenage Black girl sits turned slightly toward us, her long legs extending to the right as if she has just paused mid-rest. She has warm brown skin and a steady, direct gaze that looks out with confidence. Her dark hair is pulled back smooth. She wears a turquoise one-piece bathing suit paired with dark shorts with a white band at the waist. Her right shoulder lifts subtly, creating a gentle diagonal through her torso and arms. Behind her, dense leaves and soft, mottled greens form an outdoor backdrop that feels humid, shaded, and more close garden than beach. The paint handling emphasizes quiet presence over spectacle with soft modeling of face and limbs, controlled highlights along cheekbones and shoulder, and a calm, composed expression that is reflective rather than posed. William Arthur Cooper, an American artist-minister, repeatedly worked against degrading caricature by portraying Black individuals as specific, complex people that are self-possessed, varied, and fully human. In the 1930s, while serving as a pastor in Charlotte, he gained wider attention, including a major commission to paint portraits of African Americans across North Carolina. Those works were later published with his captions as “A Portrayal of Negro Life” (1936). His stated aim was quietly radical because his book, he wrote, might make “its silent contribution to Race appreciation… and interracial good will.” Here, the girl’s calm stare does that “silent” work while asking us to see Black girlhood not as stereotype or symbol, but as lived interiority full of beauty, thought, and rightful space.
February 9, 2026 at 12:23 AM