The Flowered Dress

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TitleThe Flowered Dress

Artist Guy Pène Du Bois (1884 - 1958)

Date1939

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 20 × 12 in. Framed: 23 3/8 × 15 1/2 × 1 5/8 in.

SignedSigned at lower right: "Guy Pène de Bois / 39".

SubmissionNA diploma presentation, June 21, 1940

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY

Object number373-P

Label TextA painter and art critic, Pène du Bois trained at the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, J. Carroll Beckwith, Frank Du Mond, and Kenneth Hayes Miller from 1899 to 1905. It was Henri's realism that would have the greatest influence on him.

Pène du Bois got a job as a reporter and later editor for a number of newspapers, which provided him the subject matter for his paintings of social satire for which he is best known. He taught at the Art Students League and at the Grand Central School of Art, and from 1924-30, he lived in France, where he devoted himself full-time to painting.

In the 1930s and 40s the artist often painted either solitary figures of women or couples engaging in social activity. The diminutive "Flowered Dress" depicts a seated woman in a very fashionable and colorful skirt, providing interesting subject matter. Pène du Bois continued to write throughout his life and published monographs on John Sloan, William Glackens, Edward Hopper, and Ernest Lawson.