#laphamsquarterly

“Walt Whitman’s Gift,” a recent essay published by Lapham’s Quarterly, explores the importance of a painting titled “The Tea Party” owned by the Kislak Center. One of three paintings by the London-born artist Herbert Gilchrist held here, “‘The Tea Party’ dwells in a nebulous state of suspended conversation. No one looks at each other … In a posture of still meditation, Walt Whitman smells a red flower.” Professor Don James McLaughlin argues that, “among Gilchrist’s and Whitman’s friends at the time of the painting’s creation, 1882–84, the import of the scene would have been inseparable from the story of Herbert’s notably absent older sister, the widely connected and beloved physician Dr. Beatrice Gilchrist.” Created in the years following Beatrice’s sudden death, “The Tea Party” echoes a feeling the doctor’s mother distilled in her epitaph: “Faithful unto Death. Many hearts mourn her. In her short career did she by skill, tenderness, and unwearied devotion to duty bring healing and comfort to many both here and in America.” For more on the life of Beatrice Gilchrist and the significance of “The Tea Party,” you can find the essay “Walt Whitman’s Gift” at: www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/walt-whitmans-gift