Brooks prices this at $89 unframed, which puts it above her own Reader in Blue at the same size. The difference is the bloom – more of it, louder, running the full height of the canvas. That is what you are paying for.
The bloom upstages the figure
The woman reading gets less than a third of the canvas. The rest is air and colour exploding off the brownstone rail. It is a choice Brooks keeps making: the figure as an anchor, not the subject. That works when the bloom earns the space. Here it does. The cadmium and violet brushwork moves. It holds a wall.
But it also means this piece asks more of the room than Reader in Blue did. The quieter work could hang in a hallway. This one wants a feature wall and cannot share it.
Comp set says smaller size
At 16×20 inches, $89 reads fair. The colour work justifies it and the portrait frame contains the bloom without cropping the gesture. At 24×36, $159 stretched on canvas, it gets loud. Not bad – loud. That size belongs in a room that can take it, which is fewer rooms than Brooks seems to think.
I checked her run. She uses this much bloom when the figure is doing something worth upstaging. Here the figure is reading. Still. The bloom is all event. That is not a flaw, but it does make the 24×36 a harder sell than the artist’s pricing implies.
Buy at 16×20
The work is strong. The price at the smaller size is right. The larger canvas asks for a buyer who wants the bloom to be the subject, and that buyer exists but is not everyone who liked Reader in Blue.
See Page Turning Quiet and the rest of Naomi Brooks’ work at Printasso. Ships free in the continental US.
Gallery-wrapped canvas, in 3 sizes — 12×16, 18×24, 24×32 in. Ships free within the continental US.
