Shop Girls

c. 1912

Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones (American, 1885–1968)

In 1912 the department store was a relatively new and important urban institution. Shop Girls depicts female employees as they cut cloth from fabric bolts and ready them for sale. Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones rendered this modern subject in rapid, open brushwork, paying particular attention to effects of light and atmosphere. Her work of this period often represented women in the modern city: nursemaids at home, women strolling in the park, shoppers, and store clerks.

Sparhawk-Jones studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she learned from artists William Merritt Chase and Cecilia Beaux. She developed an energetic painting style that drew from both Realism and Impressionism.

Status: On View, Gallery 272
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones
Title: Shop Girls
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1912
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed, lower right: Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones
Dimensions: 96.9 × 122.1 cm (38 1/8 × 48 1/16 in.)
Credit Line: Friends of American Art Collection
Reference Number: 1912.1677

Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 13, fig. 5 (ill.).

Carnegie Institute, 16th Annual Carnegie International Exhibition, Apr. 25–June 30, 1912, cat. 287.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 108th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Feb. 9–Mar. 30, 1913, cat. 116.
Milwaukee Art Institute, Exhibition of Forty Paintings presented to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Friends of American Art, Mar. 1–29, 1925, cat. 34.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 644.
Chicago, Garfield Park Art Galleries, Exhibition of Greek Sculptures and American Paintings lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 5, 1935–Mar. 3, 1936.
Appleton, Wis., Lawrence College, New Alexander Gymnasium, Loan Exhibition of American Paintings at Lawrence College, Sept. 22–Oct. 4, 1937, no. 13.
Chicago, Charles A. Stevens Store, Mar. 27–May 27, 1956.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, Bicentennial Exhibition, Apr. 11–Oct. 10, 1976, cat. 419.

The artist; sold to the Friends of American Art, Chicago, 1912; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1912.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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