William Glackens - The Shoppers [1907–08]

William Glackens - The Shoppers [1907–08], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The subject of the painting is a slice of middle-class New York life: well-dressed women shopping for clothes in a department store. The three principal figures are all portraits. The woman standing at centre is Edith Glackens, who is shown inspecting a piece of lingerie offered by a saleswoman. Edith's companion at right is Florence (Mrs. Everett) Shinn. The woman at left, seated at the counter with her back turned to the viewer, represents another family friend, Lillian G. Travis, who was noted for her beautiful auburn hair. Mrs. Travis was an old schoolmate of Edith's from the Art Students League and a frequent visitor to the Glackens's Washington Square apartment. Glackens' paean to feminine consumerism stresses the expanding role that department stores played in the lives of leisured, middle-class women in early-twentieth-century New York (both Edith and Florence Shinn were from moneyed families). In fact, the painting's setting may well be the Wanamaker department store that had only recently opened near Washington Square.

[Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches)