In 1911 the department store was a relatively new and important urban institution, and The Shoe Shop depicts the activities of female employees and their customers. Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones rendered this modern subject in a rapid, painterly style, paying particular attention to effects of light and atmosphere. Her early work often represented women in the modern city: nursemaids at home, women strolling in the park, shoppers, and store clerks. Strongly influenced by artist William Merritt Chase, Sparhawk-Jones’s painting constitutes a highly personal vision that drew from both Realism and Impressionism.
Date
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Signed recto, bottom-right, in brown pigment: "Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones".
Dimensions
99 × 84.2 cm (38 15/16 × 33 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
The William Owen Goodman and Erna Sawyer Goodman Collection
Reference Number
1939.393
Extended information about this artwork
Art Institute of Chicago,Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Exhibition in the Art Institute of Chicago, November 14 to December 27, 2911, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1911), cat. 343.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Catalog of the 107th Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Philadelpha: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1912), 22, cat. 125.
Judith A. Barter et al., The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2011), no. 78.
Anna O. Marley, “Von Cassatt zu O’Keeffe – Der Aufstieg professionaller Künstlerinnen in den USA,” in Es war einmal in Amerika – 300 Jahre US-amerikanische Kunst [Once Upon a Time in America: Three Centuries of American Art], eds. Barbara Schaefer and Anita Hachmann (Cologne: Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud/Wienand Verlag, 2018), 132, fig. 14 (ill.).
Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Sept. 28, 2018–Jan. 6, 2019, cat. 43.
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Women Masters, Old and Modern, Oct. 31, 2023–Feb. 4, 2024, no cat.
Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones (1885–1968), c. 1911; to William Owen Goodman (1848–1936), Chicago, by Feb. 1912; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1939.
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