Elizabeth Sparhawk Jones- "The Shoe Shop"

One of my favorite paintings at the Chicago Art Institute is by a woman artist I'd never heard of until three years ago. Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones (1885-1968) studied at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (where Thomas Eakins taught). She was considered a prodigy, with brushwork that rivaled the best American artists of her time. She won a number of awards, was selling her works at very high prices, then disappeared into a mental institution for 20 years beginning in 1933. The artwork she did after emerging from the institution in 1933 was quite different in style (and doesn't appeal to me).

Barbara Lehman-Smith, a journalist who is working on a book about the artist, suggests that Sparhawk-Jones, may have had a mental breakdown from the stress of becoming the sole caretaker of her widowed, domineering mother.

There are several examples of women artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who had mental breakdowns from the stress of breaking away from traditional roles and trying to establish themselves in a profession dominated by men since ancient times. Camille Claudel and Alice Neel are names that come to mind.

The painting at right from 1911, called "The Shoe Shop." is dazzling. The brushwork is free it makes it look like the women are moving. The juxtaposition of black hats and skirts with the sheer ruffles of the starches white blouses form a great design. The subject matter reminds of Edgar Degas' pastels of women in hat shops. The black and white outfits of the shop girls were an early form of business attire for women. the area to the right of the woman with the black hat is so freely painted it looks like a blur. I get the feeling that the composition won't hold together, but it does. It's dizzingly. I'm going to have to look at it a few more times to figure out how it works