...It is not in Newman’s portraits of the rich and powerful, however, that the artist’s enduring legacy lies. Nor is it in her beautifully crafted but overly derivative landscape, still-life and genre paintings. What lingers most in the memory are works like the portrait of Fanny Gowdy and “Sunshine in the Lettuce Patch,” a portrait of a 5-year-old girl. The latter, painted in 1896, is the most Impressionistic work Newman created, but it is also one of her most heartfelt and original. The image area of the small work is almost entirely filled with the head and shoulders of the little girl, whose cheeks are flushed from the sun pouring onto her golden hair from above. The lettuce patch of the title is suggested only in the fringe of green that surrounds her. As she gazes directly at us, we are, for a moment at least, with Newman in the sunshine of a French garden more than 100 years ago. It is this ability to draw the viewer in and away to another time, place or emotional level with a few strokes of paint that defines great art. At her best, Newman could indeed produce great art—even if the rest of the world chose not to notice. When she died in 1935, she was completely forgotten as an artist. The Parthenon exhibition is the first show of her works since her death. (http://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/article/13006747/an-artist-reclaimed)