Foremost in the Envious Race

Will Hicock Low · 1885

Medium

Gray and white gouache, with touches of brown and black gouache, over traces of graphite, on cream wood-pulp laminate board

Original size

18.2 × 35.1 cm (7 3/16 × 13 7/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

"Foremost in the Envious Race" carries the quiet elegance that defined Will Hicock Low at his most refined — a study in restrained tonality, with delicate gray and white gouache building a luminous, almost silvery surface over a careful graphite foundation. Low trained in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme and later Carolus-Duran, absorbing both academic rigor and the looser, more atmospheric sensibility of the French avant-garde. Back in America, he became a central figure in the decorative arts movement of the Gilded Age, prized for his ability to infuse classical themes with genuine feeling rather than cold formality. This work, with its restrained palette and layered handling, shows exactly that balance. Low was a close friend of Robert Louis Stevenson — a relationship well-documented through their correspondence and collaborative projects — and that literary circle shaped his tendency to ground visual work in narrative and mood rather than pure technique. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Low's studied subtlety into a medium built to last. Where the original gouache on board is inherently fragile, the oil painting captures its tonal range and compositional stillness in a form you can live with on a wall for generations.